Category Archives: Spanish

Some Thoughts About My Cuba

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Some Thoughts About My Cuba

This is a stream-of-consciousness outpouring of my thoughts and memories and learning of Cuba, without any additional research, or “fact checking,” because I am sure whatever details I may have “wrong” are inconsequential to the truth of my testimony. And besides, I’m in my “don’t give a fuck what you think of me” senior years. Let the picayune, pedantic and nit-pickers do their own fact-checking (it’s easy enough today). But, to those with poetic and musical and socialist souls: welcome!

My family lost everything in the Cuban Revolution (from 1959): family business, property, grandparents’ health (early death); 1961-1967 were hell for us that way. Because of the rabid U.S. assaults on the Cuban Revolution, Fidel followed Raul’s lead and looked to the Communist Party — i.e., Russia — for help (I saw a Russian freighter in Havana harbor in 1960), and in reaction to those assaults, Castro banned rock music and the Beatles (in ~1965-1967; yet Juan Formell, famously, penned the seminal Cuban Rock-and-Roll classic, “Llegué, Llegué / Guararey de Pastorita,” and founded Los Van Van in 1969, https://youtu.be/75VYMyYVPhA).

BUT, my father forever refused to ever play golf (the signal Republican/Conservative/Imperialist/Reactionary/Fascist “sport”; I had offered to buy him golf clubs as a retirement present), and refused to ever visit Miami, where his old Upper West Side NYC buddies from the 1940s-1950s had gone in their senior years, because he did not want to go where “the pain in the neck” Cubans were.

My father had sent money sub-rosa (for bribes) to help his two childhood friends and their families to get out of Cuba in the later 1960s, and he cried when thinking back on it all, saying the U.S. had “destroyed my country.” Che Guevara was executed on my father’s 43rd birthday.

So, I know that Castro made many mistakes, and had dictatorial tendencies, but he was exponentially better for Cuba than the U.S. ever was or ever will be (Cuba si! Yanqui no!, I saw that grafitto painted on Cuban walls in 1959-1960). And the Cuban government always has the U.S. and its embargo and its CIA, as an easy excuse for and distraction from its own mistakes and heavy-handedness in managing Cuba; but there is an abundance of truth in that excuse nevertheless.

Despite its evident poverty, Cuba is what Puerto Rico (I am 50% Puertorriqueño) should be: independent; “the Cubans will never bend the knee,” as the last East German premier has said. Despite killing 2 to 3 million Vietnamese (between 1965 and 1975), and toxifying much of their land with Agent Orange and Cluster Bombs, the U.S. has “forgiven” officially ‘Communist’ Vietnam because it has let itself become a sweatshop for capitalism; Cuba remains unforgiven because it has not. And THAT is a dagger pointed at the heart of American imperialists’ greatest fear.

By the way: rock and roll is, deeply, a Cuban invention. The “French Quarter” of New Orleans is considered by US Americans as the birthplace of rock-and-roll through the African-American roots of Delta Blues, R&B, and Gospel music (rhythmic and charismatic African call-and-response choral music – originally without drums, which were forbidden to American Black slaves).

The French Quarter was actually built by the Spanish governor of New Orleans during the ~25(?) years of Spain’s ownership of that port, by treaty with the French (who had established and owned it previously, and then owned it afterwards – eventually selling it to the Americans in 1803 – all by treaties between France and Spain, because of European wars in the 18th & 19th centuries).

The rhythm-based African music was imported to Cuba with the slave trade (Cuban slaves were allowed the freedom to drum at night, which was forbidden in the U.S. over fear of “signalling” a slave revolt). There was a huge trade from Havana (of Cuban sugar) to New Orleans (and back with furs bound for Europe), and with it rode in Afro-Cuban musicians to New Orleans, who by then had already incorporated colonial Spanish instruments (guitar, flute, violin, brass, piano) into their bands. Those musicians brought in the roots music of what would eventually flower as Blues, Jazz and Rock. Chuck Berry’s “Louis, Louis” is a pure cha-cha-cha.

Today, Cuban popular music incorporates hip-hop (reggeton, via Puerto Rico, and via the many back-channels Cubans have used to gain access to foreign recorded pop music: Cubans are the most talented and accomplished “pop” musicians of the world, and the tap root of it all is Africa). All pop music worldwide is basically African-based, which is why, (pop) musically, Cuba is the “ombligo del mundo” and Africa is its placenta.

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This Is Now (U.S.A.)

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Tower of Babel, by Pieter Bruegel the Elder

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This Is Now (U.S.A.)

In his CounterPunch column on 30 October 2020 [1], the editor-publisher, Jeffrey St. Clair, made the following refreshing comment:

“In his resignation letter, Greenwald goes a little far in claiming his story was ‘censored.’ Call it the victim of a strong editorial hand. Cockburn used to apply his frequently to my stories and his normal scalpel was replaced by a ruthless chainsaw whenever my subject matter strayed onto the fraught terrain of climate change, assault weapons or catch-and-release trout fishing.”

I have had the same experience with my articles and papers in every single publication I have submitted them to (even CP). I came to learn that each journal has its ideological boundary, within which is its acceptable orthodoxy, and outside of which is rejected heresy. The arbiter determining the exact contour of that boundary is the editor, and moreso when also the publisher.

This is not necessarily bad if the precepts of the orthodoxy and contour of its boundary line are clearly stated, and uniformly adhered to. Then you as a reader and writer know how to pick and choose what to get into, or not. We all prefer to sing in our own choirs and thus perpetuate a world of mutually repellant cacophonous babel, because it is so much easier to maintain our ignorance and prejudices that way.

Having said this, I have to add in all fairness that CounterPunch has been the most tolerant of any journal toward my submissions (better than 50%). If you want to eliminate all censorship and editorializing on your writings, then just publish them yourself in a blog, or just don’t bother. Believe me, most people don’t want to hear or read what you think, however much your ego would be pleased to think they do.

At this point I thought I would editorialize a bit more on the editorial just cited.

+= Jeffrey St. Clair
– = MG,Jr.

+ Biden losing Texas because he made little to no effort to secure the Hispanic vote and couldn’t effectively distance himself from Obama’s inglorious record as deporter-in-chief will be one of the most biting ironies of this strange campaign.

+ The Biden campaign has made two shrewd strategic decisions: One, to limit Biden’s own appearances; and two, to keep Bill Clinton off the campaign trail, even though Bubba might have drawn some bigoted white men over to Biden in Georgia and South Carolina.

– Spanish speaking Americans are most likely voting overwhelmingly for Biden anyway as the obviously preferable lesser evil to raging Trumpian Hispanophobia. We (i.e., ‘Hispanics’) always know that U.S. elections are competitions between two corrupt gangs of ‘pasty-faced knuckle-headed palookas’ (a fabulous phrase from the Three Stooges) united by capitalist ideology. We make inroads as we can with young new progressives, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and with the numerous non-PFKHP activists over the years. Also, in time we will demographically bury PFKHP Trumpphilic America, because we are way better lovers.

+ Usually, the lies get more grandiose the closer we get to an election. This year, however, there’s been a refreshing outbreak of honesty. Biden has pledged that he will “not end fracking.” And Trump’s chief staff Mark Meadows has vowed that Trump “will not control the pandemic.”

– It’s all about the money. It has always been all about the money. This is the United States you’re talking about: “Capitalism is a religion. Banks are churches. Bankers are priests. Wealth is heaven. Poverty is hell. Rich people are saints. Poor people are sinners. Commodities are blessings. Money is God.” — Miguel D. Lewis

– Fracking = fossil fuel = power for U.S. military machines = international political power = profits = careerist orgasms; therefore the Next White (or Whitened) Guy In The White House is 100% for it.

– “Controlling the pandemic” is a tax on “the economy” a.k.a. the exclusive corporate casino subsidized by the public, both by their tax submissions and by their acquiescence to death by incompetence and neglect. Also, laissez-faire as pandemic control is the mentally easiest policy for PFKHPs to manage.

+ The grooming of AOC for a leadership position in the party seems to be well underway. Consider her placid reaction to Biden’s retreat on fracking: “It does not bother me … I have a very strong position on fracking … However, that is my view … It will be a privilege to lobby him should we win the White House, but we need to focus on winning the White House first.”

– Lighten up on AOC. She and Greta Thunberg have done more to wake people up to working for a better U.S. and better world than all the U.S. politicians and pundits of the last 50 years, excepting the activist kids of 2018 from the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

– AOC has made the most startling and effective puncturing of the PFKHP political bubble since god knows when, and has near-instantly built up a political potential so threatening to PFKHP patriarchal control that its flaccid intelligentsia across its entire spectrum for reactionary Trumpofascism to Pelosischumer liberal pablum has been driven into apoplectic frenzies of attack against the future that AOC personifies: young, female, feminist, inclusive, non-PFKHP (and non-‘Karen’), multilingual, socialist, smart, honest, engaging and effective.

– Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s newly reelected Labour Prime Minister, is another personification of that advanced political future (a reality in New Zealand, as yet a dream in the U.S.). The fact that AOC is also urban and a Puertorriqueña is icing on the cake (for this Nuyorkino). The great fear in weakling PFKHP minds is demographic dilution, and they see their projected image of that fear as AOC, before whom they tremble: rage as pretense for fear.

+ Who will tell DiFi? McConnell, just after the Senate voted to limit debate on Amy Coney Barrett: “A lot of what we’ve done over the last four years will be undone sooner or later by the next election. They won’t be able to do much about this for a long time to come.”

– Climate change (crisis, emergency, catastrophe) is a universally acknowledged fact, often brutally so in the wake of hurricanes, floods, droughts and wildfires. The culpability of major corporations in fueling global warming by the overproduction and sale of fossil fuels and petroleum products (like plastic by the Coca Cola Company) for the last half century, and of doing their utmost to cover up the scientific findings about the root causes of global warming (that’s where “anthropogenic” comes in) so as to continue maximizing their profits by destroying the environment, are all now public knowledge.

– Therefore, it is inevitable that the public will increasingly point the accusatory finger at the oil companies (for CO2 pollution fueling global warming) and plastic producers (for ocean and biodiversity destruction) in the form of class action lawsuits. The evidence of guilt is overwhelming; there is no exculpatory evidence. The only way that future corporate defendants would be able to secure favorable judgements once they have been harpooned by such lawsuits would be to advance payments now into insurance policies known as campaigns to install as many corporate-friendly judges into the higher echelons of the corporate-friendly U.S. judiciary as possible, and as soon as possible. This is how to buy judges legally in the United States, where “justice” is a commodity.

– And that is what the frenzy to install Amy Coney Barrett into the Supreme Court was all about. Her daddy was an oil exec, so she’s part of the family of the petrocorp ancien régime. Her religious fundamentalism is incidental to the corporatocracy (though it’s a great distraction for the hoi poloi); it’s all about the money.

+ Reporter: “What do you say to Philadelphia residents that are outraged by yet another unarmed Black man being shot by police?”
+ Biden: “What I say is that there is no excuse whatsoever for the looting and the violence.”

– Except by the PFKHP supremacist U.S. military abroad, and occupation troops (a.k.a. ‘police’) domestically. It used to be called “manifest destiny,” now it’s called “exceptionalism.” What the ancien régime fears most is having its own tactics used against it, and its various euphemistic expressions of that fear, as given by Biden here, are its most forthright admissions of guilt.

+ It’s become a fixture of American political culture where those who later apologize for being wrong about a disastrous policy (regardless of the body count) are given more attention and credibility than those who made the right call from the beginning.

– This is because such heartwarming forgiveness is dispensed by the U.S. mass media, which in aggregate is the privatized propaganda ministry that touts disastrous-for-the-public corporate-friendly government policies with alacrity. These are sinners forgiving their own sins, which the public had to become impoverished and bleed and die to underwrite (as in the 2008 financial meltdown, and Vietnam and Iraq Wars).

+ In the last two years, Trump’s Department of Energy has blocked the release of more than 40 reports on renewable energy: “They just go into a black hole.”

– The U.S. Department of Energy is a government agency for the maintenance of U.S. nuclear weapons capability, infrastructure and production. Anything else they may do is auxiliary. While there is much more that the US DOE could do to further renewable energy (I know, I used to work for them through a contractor, and my renewable energy reports just ended up on my blog), that is not a concern of the petrocorp ancien régime that owns the government.

– It may help to remember that John Jay, an author of the Federalist Papers and the first Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, was fond of saying: “The people who own the country should run it.” By “people” Jay meant wealthy merchants and slave-owners like himself. This is what the Supreme Court has always been about (with the exception of a few deviations by people like William O. Douglas, Thurgood Marshall and surprisingly by Earl Warren): the defense of property against democracy.

+ The Arctic’s giant methane deposits are beginning to leak their climate-wrecking fumes. Adjust your doomsday clock accordingly.

+ A worst-case climate scenario could produce almost $500 trillion in damages—about twice all the wealth in the world today. A best case still inflicts about $30 trillion in damage, a new study in Nature estimates, with intermediate scenarios between $69 trillion and $131 trillion.

+ According to a post-debate Morning Consult poll, only 28% voters oppose transitioning away from the oil industry. 52% of independents support transitioning away, and even 41% of Republicans.

– The exploding magnitude of the problem of global warming is only matched by the degree of reluctance by politically organized human society to reformulate its civilization into balance with Nature, and thus into harmony with the continuation of biodiverse Life-On-Earth. The mental inertia behind our non-action is from the static self-images many people have of themselves (‘I have to keep living and working this way because I can’t imagine otherwise’), and from our near-universal fetishizing of money.

– “The economy” is an artifice that can be constructed any way “we” want — so people could easily be made more important than profits — and money is just a token that is easily printed on government paper, and is now even generated as electrons vibrating in computer memory circuits. It doesn’t matter how much “money” it costs to formulate a decent society in harmony with Nature; money is shit, and shit is fertilizer.

+ Trump’s war on wolves just went nuclear…
+ The decision to remove the protections for gray wolves across all 48 states is going to have lethal consequences in Wisconsin, where the state’s “wolf hunt” will be immediately reopened.

– What it really is, deep down, it is the pleasure of inflicting cruelty on the helpless by terrified weaklings.

+ Ned Norris Jr., Chairman of the Tohono O’odham Nation, on the border wall’s desecration of Indigenous sacred sites: “As Americans, we all should be horrified that the Federal Government has so little respect for our religious and cultural values.”

– It’s all about the money; it is the pleasure of inflicting cruelty on the helpless by terrified weaklings; it is so much easier to maintain ignorance and prejudices that way; it is a reaction to the increasing fear of demographic dilution and the puncturing of the political bubble of PFKHP patriarchal control; it is manifest destiny and exceptionalism; it is the fearful wrath of the American money-constipated ancien régime.

– Capitalism must die for the world to live.

[1] https://www.counterpunch.org/2020/10/30/roaming-charges-high-anxiety/

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The Connected, and The Unmoored

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The Connected, and The Unmoored

I saw the sunrise, from pitch black to clear light over the canyon rim this morning. An owl was hooting before the light, the air warming as the dark faded. Heard the birds wake up and each begin its chatter; the hummers buzzing over my head to inspect me before tanking up at the nectar bottle. The turkeys gobbled confidently from across the canyon.

Made French Press coffee. Watched our cats play, stalking and chasing each other on the hill as morning light expanded. We later ate some simple cold cuts, cheeses, bread, pasta salad; cool water.

I played, stumbling with some exponential functions, trying to simulate CO2 buildup in the atmosphere (55.5 million years ago, and also again today), a perennial project. Seems pointless to tell people about it, but it keeps my mind occupied, and I’m curious. That CO2 and its growing heat will be with “us” for centuries, a millennia? (who cares?).

Went out a few times to look at the day, which was lovely, with only a subdued hint of ash haziness from the fires up north. My mother is living with us for a while, waiting it out. She told me of her grandmother who raised her, who was born in the last days of Spanish rule in Puerto Rico, before the 1898 takeover by the Yankee Conquistadores. My mother wishes she could buy the platanos to make pastelón, like her grandmother used to make for her in Río Piedras.

I thought of my father, who would have been 96 on his birthday during these early days of October. I remember the stories he told me of his father’s childhood, spent with his father sheepherding in the Cantabrian Mountains, in the very early years of the 20th century: stories of facing off against prowling wolves, armed with long wooden staffs and Great Pyrenees mountain dogs, of drinking wine from the bota, of wild strawberries, and bagpipes.

Watched a nature video from 26 years ago, about Caribbean sea life, so lovely then. Had Caprese and guacamole (with tortilla chips) for supper, both made to perfection; I handwashed the dishes.

Watched a video (from 30 years ago) on the life and art of Mozart; I always have tears well up when I hear the Lacrimosa.

Life is short, and there is so much to do, so much to experience, even for us lacking the talent, grace and insight of a Wolfgang Amadeus, and I see none of what is worthwhile in the close-in noisy opaque bubbles everyone jams their heads into to plug up their senses with the flickering trivialities and remote dramas of the moment.

The owl, the birds, the turkeys, the cats, the critters who keep out of my sight (but not the cats’s), and later the crickets at night, they all know what is happening at any moment every moment. They have to, to eat, to stay alive; for them paying attention is the essence of living, but so is napping in the sunshine, which they all in their turn do so luxuriantly.

We can be so pitifully disconnected, and most of us always are, for we just don’t notice the whole world changing: drying, melting, burning, receding, dying. It’s no wonder animals look at us with such amazement: “how could they be so clueless?” There’s always a reason I guess, a crisis of the moment, to not get out of your head and wake up to the flow of the world; but that’s just tragic: death. It’s also why people feel so alone, because in fact they are alone in desert bubbles, befuddled, lost castaways, wired to artificiality: empty static.

I realize I’m an anti-social socialist, a hermit socialist, “out of the loop” in every way for sure. And I need to be, it’s best.

My boy black cat — Buster — will bump into my leg at night, when I’m out looking onto the deep sound of the unseen. He understands of course, his connection to the primordial is undimmed by civilization, his wisdom is locked safely in DNA that has been 25 million years in the imprinting, and I appreciate his encouragement.

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Niña de las Dunas — Español-English

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Español • Literal • English:

Niña de las Dunas es una canción, en estilo flamenco moderno, de María José Llergo del año 2017.

Niña de las Dunas
María José Llergo (2017)
[Guitarra · Marc López]

Español:

Madre dijo una vez
Que naciste del cielo
Que una estrella blanca bajó
Derritiendo el hielo
De su corazón.

Padre viejo miró
Esa noche a la luna
Y en la estepa nocturna escribió
Con navaja
Esta oración.

Niña de las dunas
Duerme tranquila
Llevas en la frente
Marca divina.

Niña de las dunas
No tengas miedo
Yo estaré contigo
En tu oscuro vuelo.

Y arena de mi reloj
Volverás a la tierra
Donde el agua te moldeo
Nunca más el hierro
Será tu prisión.

Niña de las dunas
Duerme tranquila
Llevas en la frente
Marca divina.

Niña de las dunas
No tengas miedo
Yo estaré contigo
En tu oscuro vuelo.

(Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele
Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele)

La luna se hizo cuchillo
Y en su pecho se clavó
Manchando de rojo sangre
Su vestido de algodón.

Con ella se la llevó
La hizo su compañera
Unos la llaman Venus
Pensando que es una estrella.

(Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele
Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele)

(Lele lele lele lele
Lele lele lele)

Niña de las dunas
Duerme tranquila
Llevas en la frente
Marca divina.

Niña de las dunas
No tengas miedo
Yo estaré contigo
En tu oscuro vuelo.

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Niña de las Dunas es una canción, en estilo flamenco moderno, de María José Llergo del año 2017.
[Girl of the Dunes is a/one song, in style flamenco modern, of/by María José Llergo of/from year 2017].

Niña de las Dunas
María José Llergo (2017)
[Guitarra/Guitar · Marc López]

Literal translation:

Madre dijo una vez
[Mother said one time]
Que naciste del cielo
[That you-born from sky/heaven]
Que una estrella blanca bajó
[That one star white below(o)/descended(ó)]
Derritiendo el hielo
[Melting the ice]
De su corazón.
[Of your heart.]

Padre viejo miró
[Father old looked]
Esa noche a la luna
[That night at the moon]
Y en la estepa nocturna escribió
[And in the steppe nocturnal wrote]
Con navaja
[With razor]
Esta oración.
[This oration.]

Niña de las dunas
[Girl of the dunes]
Duerme tranquila
[Sleep tranquilly]
Llevas en la frente
[Takes/carries on the front/forehead]
Marca divina.
[Mark divine.]

Niña de las dunas
[Girl of the dunes]
No tengas miedo
[No/don’t have fear]
Yo estaré contigo
[I will-be with-you]
En tu oscuro vuelo.
[In your dark flight.]

Y arena de mi reloj
[And sand of/from my watch/clock]
Volverás a la tierra
[You-will-return to the earth]
Donde el agua te moldeo
[Where the water it-you molded]
Nunca más el hierro
[Never more the iron]
Será tu prisión.
[Will-be your prison.]

Niña de las dunas
[Girl of the dunes]
Duerme tranquila
[Sleep tranquilly]
Llevas en la frente
[Takes/carries on the front/forehead]
Marca divina.
[Mark divine.]

Niña de las dunas
[Girl of the dunes]
No tengas miedo
[No/don’t have fear]
Yo estaré contigo
[I will-be with-you]
En tu oscuro vuelo.
[In your dark flight.]

(Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele
Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele)

La luna se hizo cuchillo
[The moon itself-> <-made knife]
Y en su pecho se clavó
[And in its chest/breast itself nailed]
Manchando de rojo sangre
[Staining with red blood]
Su vestido de algodón.
[Its dress/clothes of cotton.]

Con ella se la llevó
[With her it her took]
La hizo su compañera
[Her-> <-made her companion]
Unos la llaman Venus
[Some her they-call Venus]
Pensando que es una estrella.
[Thinking that she-is a star.]

(Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele
Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele)

(Lele lele lele lele
Lele lele lele)

Niña de las dunas
[Girl of the dunes]
Duerme tranquila
[Sleep tranquilly]
Llevas en la frente
[Takes/carries on the front/forehead]
Marca divina.
[Mark divine.]

Niña de las dunas
[Girl of the dunes]
No tengas miedo
[No/don’t have fear]
Yo estaré contigo
[I will-be with-you]
En tu oscuro vuelo.
[In your dark flight.]

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Girl of the Dunes is a song, in modern flamenco style, by María José Llergo, from the year 2017.

Girl of the Dunes
María José Llergo (2017)
[Guitar · Marc López]

English translation:

Mother once said
You were heaven-born
And a white star fell
To melt your icy heart.

Old father gazed
At the moon that night
And with his razor
This oration scribed
Upon the night-time steppe.

Girl of the dunes
Sleep tranquilly
Your forehead is marked
By divinity.

Girl of the dunes
Don’t be afraid,
I will be with you
In your darkness flight.

And my hourglass sands
Will fall back to earth,
Whose waters molded you,
So iron nevermore
Can imprison you.

Girl of the dunes
Sleep tranquilly
Your forehead is marked
By divinity.

Girl of the dunes
Don’t be afraid,
I will be with you
In your darkness flight.

(Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele
Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele)

The moon became a knife
And stabbed her own breast
With red blood staining
Her white cotton dress.

Away with her she’s taken
Her lover now to be,
And some would call her Venus
Thinking she’s a star.

(Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele
Le lele le lele le le lele le le
Le lele le le lele lele lele lele)

(Lele lele lele lele
Lele lele lele)

Girl of the dunes
Sleep tranquilly
Your forehead is marked
By divinity.

Girl of the dunes
Don’t be afraid,
I will be with you
In your darkness flight.

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Niña de las Dunas – María José Llergo
25 September 2017
https://youtu.be/lKWvTkeG7NI

Agradecemos a Urknor por haber subido la letra.
Urknor (10/07/2019), Valencia (España)
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We are grateful to Urknor, from Valencia, Spain, for posting the Spanish lyrics.
https://www.musica.com/letras.asp?letra=2426757

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Lorca, Balada de la placeta, Español-English

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Balada de la placeta, a poem by Federico García Lorca (5 June 1898 – 19 August 1936), appears three times here:

1, the original Spanish
(as found on one internet site, https://mir-es.com/redis.php?g=lorca&link=774)

2, the above with a line-by-line literal translation

3, my attempt at a “poetic” English translation/paraphrase (with many compromises).

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Español:

Balada de la placeta
(Federico García Lorca)

Cantan los niños
en la noche quieta;
¡arroyo claro,
fuente serena!

Los niños

¿Qué tiene tu divino
corazón en fiesta?

Yo

Un doblar de campanas
perdidas en la niebla.

Los niños

Ya nos dejas cantando
en la plazuela.
¡Arroyo claro,
fuente serena!

¿Qué tienes en tus manos
de primavera?

Yo

Una rosa de sangre
y una azucena.

Los niños

Mójalas en el agua
de la canción añeja.
¡Arroyo claro,
fuente serena!

¿Qué sientes en tu boca
roja y sedienta?

Yo

El sabor de los huesos
de mi gran calavera.

Los niños

Bebe el agua tranquila
de la canción añeja.
¡Arroyo claro,
fuente serena!

¿Por qué te vas tan lejos
de la plazuela?

Yo

¡Voy en busca de magos
y de princesas!

Los niños

¿Quién te enseñó el camino
de los poetas?

Yo

La fuente y el arroyo
de la canción añeja.

Los niños

¿Te vas lejos, muy lejos
del mar y de la tierra?

Yo

Se ha llenado de luces
mi corazón de seda,
de campanas perdidas,
de lirios y de abejas,
y yo me iré muy lejos,
más allá de esas sierras,
más allá de los mares,
cerca de las estrellas,
para pedirle a Cristo
Señor que me devuelva
mi alma antigua de niño,
madura de leyendas,
con el gorro de plumas
y el sable de madera.

Los niños

Ya nos dejas cantando
en la plazuela,
¡arroyo claro,
fuente serena!

Las pupilas enormes
de las frondas resecas
heridas por el viento,
lloran las hojas muertas.

1919

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Literal translation:

Balada de la placeta
[ballad of the little square/plaza]
(Federico García Lorca)

Cantan los niños
[the children sing]
en la noche quieta;
[in the quiet night]
¡arroyo claro,
[clear stream!]
fuente serena!
[serene spring/fountain!]

Los niños
[the children]

¿Qué tiene tu divino
[what has your divine]
corazón en fiesta?
[heart so festive?]

Yo
[me]

Un doblar de campanas
[a doublet/pair of bells]
perdidas en la niebla.
[lost in the fog/mist.]

Los niños
[the children]

Ya nos dejas cantando
[you/it already leaves/has us singing]
en la plazuela.
[in the little square]
¡Arroyo claro,
[clear stream!]
fuente serena!
[serene spring!]

¿Qué tienes en tus manos
[what do you have in your hands]
de primavera?
[of springtime?]

Yo
[me]

Una rosa de sangre
[a rose of blood / a blood rose]
y una azucena.
[and a lily.]

Los niños
[the children]

Mójalas en el agua
[wet them in the water]
de la canción añeja.
[of the aged/old song.]
¡Arroyo claro,
[clear stream!]
fuente serena!
[serene spring!]

¿Qué sientes en tu boca
[what do you feel in your mouth]
roja y sedienta?
[red and thirsty?]

Yo
[me]

El sabor de los huesos
[the flavor of the bones]
de mi gran calavera.
[of my great skull.]

Los niños
[the children]

Bebe el agua tranquila
[drink the tranquil water]
de la canción añeja.
[of the aged song.]
¡Arroyo claro,
[clear stream!]
fuente serena!
[serene spring!]

¿Por qué te vas tan lejos
[why do you go so far]
de la plazuela?
[from the little plaza?]

Yo
[me]

¡Voy en busca de magos
[I go in search of magicians]
y de princesas!
[and of princesses!]

Los niños
[the children]

¿Quién te enseñó el camino
[who showed you the way/path]
de los poetas?
[of the poets?]

Yo
[me]

La fuente y el arroyo
[the spring and the stream]
de la canción añeja.
[of the aged/old song.]

Los niños
[the children]

¿Te vas lejos, muy lejos
[are you going far, very far]
del mar y de la tierra?
[from the sea and from the earth?]

Yo
[me]

Se ha llenado de luces
[it has filled with lights]
mi corazón de seda,
[my heart of silk,]
de campanas perdidas,
[of lost bells]
de lirios y de abejas,
[of lilies and bees,]
y yo me iré muy lejos,
[and I will go very far,]
más allá de esas sierras,
[further than those mountains,]
más allá de los mares,
[further than the seas,]
cerca de las estrellas,
[close to the stars,]
para pedirle a Cristo
[to ask Christ]
Señor que me devuelva
[please God give me back]
mi alma antigua de niño,
[my ancient childhood heart,]
madura de leyendas,
[ripe with legends]
con el gorro de plumas
[with a plumed/feathered hat]
y el sable de madera.
[and the wooden saber.]

Los niños
[the children]

Ya nos dejas cantando
[already you/it leaves/has us singing]
en la plazuela,
[in the little square,]
¡arroyo claro,
[clear stream!]
fuente serena!
[serene spring!]

Las pupilas enormes
[the enormous (eye)pupils]
de las frondas resecas
[of the dried fronds]
heridas por el viento,
[wounded by the wind,]
lloran las hojas muertas.
[cry/crying the dead leaves.]

1919

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English “poetic” translation/paraphrase

Ballad of the little plaza
(Federico García Lorca)

Children are singing
in the night so still,
with clarity streaming
and serenity fills.

The children:

Why is your heart, so divine,
so festive at this time?

Me:

A duet of bells is peeling clear
lost in mists to sight, not ear

The children:

Already, you have us singing
in this little square,
with clarity streaming
and serenity fills.

What is it you are holding
in your springtime hands?

Me:

A blood rose so lovely,
and so white just one lily

The children:

Dip them in the waters that moisten
from the aged song to freshen,
with clarity streaming
and serenity fills.

What is your mouth now feeling
to be so red and thirsty?

Me:

The taste of these my bones
from off my skull’s great dome.

The children:

Drink of the tranquil water
that is this old song’s patter,
with clarity streaming
and serenity fills.

Why go away so far
from this our little square?

Me:

I go to find magicians,
and also princesses.

The children:

Who has shown you the pathway
that leads to poetry?

Me:

The springing source, the flowing stream
of that song as old as dreams

The children:

Are you going far, so far
beyond sea and land, so far?

Me:

A glow of lights has filled my heart
made of silk and now not dark,
it’s also filled with lost bell sounds,
with bees and lily bundles bound.
For I will go away so far
past where you see those mountains are
even further than the seas,
to climb up to the stars at night
and give my plea to Jesus Christ
God, won’t You please return to me
my childhood heart that used to be,
with legends richly ripened then,
and plume my hat to once again
my wooden sword in hand extend!

The children:

Already, you have us singing
in this little square,
with clarity streaming
and serenity fills.

The enormous pupils of the eyes
of those dried and withered fronds
that were wounded by the winds
are crying tears of now dead leaves.

1919

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Spanish Guitar Music

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This essay is at best only a fragment of the enormous topic of “Spanish Guitar Music.” I wrote it for the benefit of two music college students: “Mister Iceland,” a guitarist, and Ella García, a classically trained soprano who is also a student of song-writing and arranging. This is not a scholarly article, just my own thoughts about music I have heard and enjoyed. First, I will describe a few of what I consider to be the essential pieces and forms of the Spanish guitar repertoire, then I will describe a modern American composition that I see as having many features of classical Spanish guitar music. I refer to examples posted on YouTube as music videos. Enjoy.

Romance de Amor – Vicente Gómez
https://youtu.be/rf3MLp98J_c

“Romance de Amor” is anonymous, and the best known Spanish guitar piece. Vincente Gómez added a slower intermediate section (or, an introduction), making for a better piece. The sheet music for this piece is in his book of 14 guitar pieces, “Vincente Gómez Guitar Album,” published by Belwin Mills Publishing Company (Melville, NY), 1980. A number of the pieces in Gómez’s book have a flamenco sound, all are pure Spanish and very good. I highly recommend this book to any serious student of the guitar, especially any student of classical guitar music and playing technique.

Leyenda (“Asturias”) by Isaac Albéniz – Andrés Segovia
https://youtu.be/lCeebWgjrrU

Segovia is the founder of modern classical guitar. He made many transcriptions of Baroque and Classical pieces for the guitar. He used to say that J. S. Bach really “intended” his pieces for guitar; Segovia’s way of saying the guitar was a natural instrument for contrapuntal music. “Asturias,” by Isaac Albéniz (1860-1909) was originally written for the piano. Asturias is a province on the north coast of Spain (where my paternal grandfather came from), and this piece, “Leyenda” (Legend), was one of a number of pieces in Albéniz’s piano suite evoking the different regions/provinces of Spain.

Recuerdos de la Alhambra, played by Andrés Segovia
https://youtu.be/sdaPoUNk5R8

“Recuerdos de la Alhambra” (Memories of the Alhambra), by Francisco Tárrega (1852-1909), is my favorite Spanish guitar piece. Tárrega was 44 years old when he wrote Recuerdos de la Alhambra in 1896, 3 years after Andrés Segovia (1893-1987) was born. Tárrega was a master guitarist and composer who (like Segovia later) elevated guitar music and guitar playing to a sophisticated and refined “classical music” form of art. To many in the 19th century, guitar music was considered only peasant and street music. Francisco Tárrega, Fernando Sor (1778-1839), and perhaps a few others championed the guitar as an instrument of refined art, and Segovia carried on that effort after Tárrega.

Flamenco – Manitas de Plata (1955?)
https://youtu.be/TtRPIdfLlTA

Manitas de Plata (1921-2014) (Little Hands of Silver) was a Roma (“Gypsy”) flamenco guitarist born in Southern France. This video of his first TV appearance shows him before his subsequent international fame and pop-star status. This short video (which has too long a gap of silence at the start) shows several flamenco guitar techniques: four-sequential-finger strums, arpeggios, and drumming by tapping the guitar top. It is evident that Manitas de Plata had great facility and a fluid style of playing. This guitar music is improvisational within a variety of general forms, some “fast” and some “slow.” On one occasion in 1964, Pablo Picasso heard him play and afterwards took Manitas de Plata’s guitar and drew pictures of a picador on it (raising the value of that guitar considerably!). I noticed that there are no pictures on Manitas de Plata’s guitar in the video linked above, but there are on the video linked below.

Manitas de Plata (on TV), 1967
https://youtu.be/JgXAffJs_fU

Manitas de Plata (born Ricardo Baliardo) was a phenomenon on the Riviera, and he gained worldwide fame with the release of his 1963 recordings in Arles, France, produced by the Phillips label and distributed in America in 1967 by the Connoisseur Society (of New York). These recordings preserve the sound of authentic flamenco musical performances (“unplugged”) as had been heard for centuries, before the advent of elaborate studio electronics and recording professionalism. The Connoisseur Society double album of Manitas de Plata’s live open-air recordings included selections with vocals, the canto hondo (deep song) of flamenco music. Here is one example of these Manitas de Plata sessions.

Manitas de Plata, 1963: Malagueñas Flamencas – Recorded at Arles, France, October 1963
https://youtu.be/QKrmbrnvgXM

La Verbena de la Paloma – En Chiclana me crié
https://youtu.be/U7JaUH8uxDg

This video (just above) has no guitar, but the piano music heard at the beginning could easily have been performed by a guitarist in real life. This scene is from a 1960s Spanish movie of one of the most famous and popular Zarzuelas (Spanish operettas), La Verbena de la Paloma (a feast day for the Virgin Mary, which is also an occasion for festivals). This scene evokes the type of gathering, with music (usually guitar), dancing, singing, and food and wine, that was “of the people,” that is to say popular, not theatrical (in real life). This scene is set in the 19th century, and shows how most people of the time – who were workers and peasants, not wealthy, nor city sophisticates – actually made and enjoyed music.

The woman lead performer singer and dancer (Concha Velasco) is playing an unmarried and very popular young woman who is pursued by a handsome, young and poor man, and also by an old druggist (apothecary) with “plata” (silver = money); and she sort of plays one against the other (a conflict of: love in poverty versus amicable loveless security).

Her song “En Chiclana me críe” (I Was Raised in Chiclana) is about her pride of being from her native village and region (near the ancient city of Cádiz). This song has the intensity of flamenco song but without the roughness of pure street flamenco; it is more polished here as a musical theater/operetta song. Much of flamenco and Spanish-style guitar music originates from this type of popular entertainment. The rough equivalent today would be acoustic guitar music with a beat that could simultaneously be sung to and danced with. The young ladies (and the hapless man-hero) in the video have operatic voices, while the old folks are invariably vocal music comics, who are always included in Zarzuelas, which were from the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Fernando Sor (1778-1839) – Seguidillas
https://youtu.be/QGrtstwp8Qk

This video shows the performance of three seguidillas by Fernando Sor (1778-1839), who was 22 years younger than Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791). The performance duo are one guitarist and one soprano who, in this case, were students at the San Francisco Conservatory in 2017. This is genteel music of the late 18th and early 19th centuries, yet it still “moves” as you can easily hear in the guitar accompaniment. Segovia played and championed the music of Sor as part of his promotion of “classical” guitar. The major progression of such well-known classical guitar players/champions being (from the 18th to 20th centuries) Sor, Tárrega, and Segovia.

Infinitesimal – Perfect Aquarium
https://youtu.be/pruWXs6ckak

To my mind, the 2015 American song composition, “Infinitesimal,” is a modern version of seguidillas. Liam Hardison (the Spanish-style guitar player) uses numerous features of Spanish guitar music, and techniques of Spanish guitar playing: flamenco strums, classical style arpeggios, and the counterpoint of a thumb-played bass-line accompanying the four-finger plucking of a treble line with arpeggios and tremolo.

The vocals on Infinitesimal are in a classical (Bel Canto/operatic) style, but with also a small hint of canto hondo, the flamenco “deep song” vocalization style that originally came from the Moorish-Arabic influence on Spain during the 8th to 15th centuries, of long unbroken lines of melismatic chants, which in flamenco are sung extremely emotionally, roughly and horsely, something like melodic primal scream.

What is not included in this particular recording of Infinitesimal is the guitar-drumming that is typical of flamenco, and is also used in Cuban country-style guitar playing (used to great effect by Rafael Cueto of the Trio Matamoros – described elsewhere on my blog). Another excellent feature on this recording of Infinitesimal is the percussion, which adds an exotic flavor that I think of as a mix of Arabic-Moorish and African spicing to a Spanish musical broth.

I don’t know if the young people who composed and performed Infinitesimal knew of the Spanish forms and influences I have mentioned here, but there is no question in my mind that Liam was throwing in all the idioms of Spanish classical guitar music that he had learned in his musical education up to that point. This song is the only one of its kind on the album, “Perfect Aquarium,” which is otherwise a contemporary Art-Rock album. So, I think Infinitesimal is a modern accidental seguidillas, a composition formulated by osmosis from what the band members had heard and played during their prior schooling, and not as a product of their intentional musicological research.

Also, I think Infinitesimal is very good in every way.

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About Perfect Aquarium:

“Perfect Aquarium” album (9 songs) released on September 3, 2015
https://perfectaquarium.bandcamp.com/album/perfect-aquarium

Perfect Aquarium (the band):

Liam Bernard: Lead & Classical Guitar
Ben Saldich: Rhythm Guitar, Vocals
Isaac Roth: Bass, Vocals
Frank Klopotowski: Drums, Vocals

Vocals on “Infinitesimal” by Ella Garcia

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Maybe “Mister Iceland” and Ella will come up with their own seguidillas, as music for our time.

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ALSO:

27 January 2018 is the 262nd birthday of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, one of the most sublime personifications of the voice of the Universe, and a gift from it to the Ages.

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Noche Cubana — Español-English

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Noche Cubana is a bolero (ballad) composed by César Portillo de la Luz (La Habana, 31 octubre 1922 / 4 mayo 2013).

The recording cited below is of Omara Portuondo singing Noche Cubana in 1958, on her debut recording as a soloist. There is an extensive essay (in Spanish) on the music of César Portillo de la Luz and on this particular song and recording, at the YouTube site for Noche Cubana.

The lyrics of Noche Cubana are presented here, first in Spanish, then my poetic translation of them into English, and finally a word-for-word literal translation of the Spanish lyrics.

In my poetic translation, I have tried to suggest the lush elegance of the Spanish lyrics but I have made no effort to match the line-by-line syllable count, nor the rhyming pattern of the original. A “singable” English version of Noche Cubana is left to future work (if ever).

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Noche Cubana
César Portillo de la Luz (La Habana, 31 octubre 1922 / 4 mayo 2013)

Noche cubana
Morena bonita de alma sensual
Con tu sonrisa de luna y ojos de estrellas.

Voz de susurro de frondas y arrullo de mar
Besas con brisas y tu abrazo es calor tropical
Noche criolla quien junto a ti no, no quisiera soñar
Quien no la luz de tu dulce sonrisa no quiere besar?
Negra bonita de ojos de estrellas
En tus brazos morenos quiere vivir un romance mi alma bohemia.

Voz de susurro de frondas y arrullo de mar
Besas con brisas y tu abrazo es calor tropical
Noche criolla quien junto a ti no quisiera soñar?
Quien a la luz de tu dulce sonrisa no quiere besar?
Negra bonita de ojos de estrellas
En tus brazos morenos quiere vivir un romance mi alma bohemia.

Noche cubana
Noche cubana
Noche cubana

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Cuban Night (César Portillo de la Luz)

Oh, Cuban night
You lovely dark girl of sensual soul,
With the moon as your smile, and your eyes made of stars.

Your voice is the whisper of palms and the sea’s lullaby,
Your kisses are breezes, and the tropical heat your embrace.
Oh, Creole night, who could be next to you and not wish to dream?
Who would not want to be able to kiss your sweet shining smile?
Beautiful black girl with eyes made of stars
In your dark arms my bohemian soul wants to live a romance.

Your voice is the whisper of palms and the sea’s lullaby,
Your kisses are breezes, and the tropical heat your embrace.
Oh, Creole night, who could be next to you and not wish to dream?
Who would not want to be able to kiss your sweet shining smile?
Beautiful black girl with eyes made of stars
In your dark arms my bohemian soul wants to live a romance.

Oh, Cuban night,
Cuban night,
Cuban night.

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Omara Portuondo – Noche cubana (canción) César Portillo de la Luz
https://youtu.be/frgbtk8mOhM

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LITERAL

Noche Cubana (César Portillo de la Luz)
[night cuban]

Noche cubana
[night cuban]
Morena bonita de alma sensual
[brunette/brown pretty of soul sensual]
Con tu sonrisa de luna y ojos de estrellas.
[with your smile of moon and eyes of stars]

Voz de susurro de frondas y arrullo de mar
[voice of whisper of fronds(palm fronds) and lullaby of sea]
Besas con brisas y tu abrazo es calor tropical
[you-kiss with/as breezes and your embrace is heat tropical]
Noche criolla quien junto a ti no, no quisiera soñar
[night creole who next/together to you no, no would-want dream]
Quien no la luz de tu dulce sonrisa no quiere besar?
[who no the light of your sweet smile no want kiss]
Negra bonita de ojos de estrellas
[black(female) pretty of eyes of stars]
En tus brazos morenos quiere vivir un romance mi alma bohemia.
[in your arms brown/dark wants to-live a romance my soul bohemian]

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Night Sky In Cuba
(another poetic translation of Noche Cubana)

Night sky in Cuba,
A black woman beauty of sensual soul
With a smile made of moon rays and eyes made of twinkling stars.

Your voice is the whisper of fronds in sway, and murmurs by the sea,
Your kisses are breezes, and tropical heat your embrace.
Creole night please stay, who could be with you and not want dreams to see?
Who could receive your sparkling sweet smile and not want kisses to be?
Black woman beauty with star shining eyes,
In the arms of your darkness my bohemian soul seeks to live out a romance.

Your voice is the whisper of fronds in sway, and murmurs by the sea,
Your kisses are breezes, and tropical heat your embrace.
Creole night please stay, who could be with you and not want dreams to see?
Who could receive your sparkling sweet smile and not want kisses to be?
Black woman beauty with star shining eyes,
In the arms of your darkness my bohemian soul seeks to live out a romance.

Night sky in Cuba,
dark warmth after day
light from far away.

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Noche Cubana (cover by Ella García)
5 May 2020
https://youtu.be/FWQ5UhilE6Y

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I Am Puerto Rico, So Are You

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I Am Puerto Rico, So Are You
26 September 2017

The island of Puerto Rico has been destroyed by Hurricane Maria, and remains in ruins and with little outside assistance for about a weak now. What should be done?

The U.S. could (if it wanted to) send an aircraft carrier (or two or three) to Puerto Rico, and use its nuclear reactor as a power source for basic needs in San Juan (where it would most likely dock). It could offload mobile hospital units (MASH) and truck and/or helicopter such units to more remote locations; such units would include gasoline/diesel generators. Additionally, there are Marine units designed to set up helicopter landing zones and other forward bases (as in Vietnam), which today include the ability to set up some solar power systems (for very local electric power), as well as drone systems (for reconnaissance) to search for and locate places/people most in need of help. The US military also has hospital ships (as in Vietnam, during the US war), that could treat the most seriously injured, transported (by helicopter) from “the field.” The U.S. military, as well as the oil companies, have tankers that can bring in needed fuel (oil, gasoline). The US Corps of Engineers (basically the Army construction industry) can have units dispersed throughout the Island, to clear debris, repair and open up roads, and repair power lines. The combat engineers of the U.S. military (with the Navy, the famous Seabees) can also make amphibious landings and create temporary airfields and clear debris (they are intended to go into landing zones before the troops and clear mines and obstructions against amphibious assault).

One use of remote solar collector-to-electric power systems would be to power cell phone towers, and provide local cell-phone charging power outlets, so people isolated in the wrecked hinterlands can at least communicate, for both family/personal matters as well as financial matters. Establishing housing locations in sanitary conditions, with clean water and safe food available – “refugee camps” – can and should be established ASAP by combinations of the resources/forces I have mentioned. Basically, what is needed is the network of extended support services needed by US troops in a war zone – again, as in Vietnam during the US war there – only this time those being supported are Puerto Rico’s people, the victims of Hurricane Maria.

Had I been US President this would have been called into action as soon as Hurricane Maria’s winds had died down to below 60 mph at each locality on the Island. What we have now is that 6-7 days after the passing of the Mega-Weedwacker of Hurricane Maria, Trump has been prodded to make a speech – mainly to moan about the fact that bankrupt Puerto Rico “owes” billions to the vulture capitalists on Wall Street.

In my view, the abject failure to safeguard, or at least speed the rescue, of Hurricane Katrina victims in New Orleans during the administration of George W. Bush, and now particularly the case of Hurricane Maria devastation in Puerto Rico during the Trump Administration, is above the threshold of “high crimes and misdemeanors” for impeaching the Trump executive branch (too late for impeaching GWB, but not indicting him), and the congressional leadership, minimally of the Republican Party and probably also the Democratic Party. For Trump, I think such intentional negligence (how could it not be intentional?) rises to the point of being indictable for murder.

Would my emergency “invasion” of Puerto Rico by the US military cost money? Hell yes, a lot! But then there never seems to be a lack of billions and trillions to bomb dark-skinned people to smithereens all over the world for decades at a time. The Washington D.C. government is treating Puerto Rico like the Israelis treat the Palestinian Occupied Territories. Spanish is the primary language in Puerto Rico, and that island was conquered by the U.S. in 1898 (The Spanish American War). The residents of Puerto Rico were given US citizenship on March 2, 1917, and the U.S. (Wilson Administration) entered World War I on April 6, 1917; and men from Puerto Rico were drafted into the US military for that war and for every US war thereafter till the draft was replaced by voluntary induction in 1973. Tellingly, Puerto Rico was not given US statehood, nor allowed to have voting congressional representatives in the US government.

Realize what is happening here, the high rollers who have bought out the US government really only care about lining their pockets, and getting megalomaniacal orgasms from exercising power, and they really don’t care much about the well-being and security of the US population outside their class – the 1%, and also outside their clan-race affiliation (so Blacks, Muslims and Latinos are largely out of luck). Unless you are in one of the cared-for wealth classes, or favored “race” classes, you are only one hurricane, or tornado, or flood, or epidemic, or earthquake, or landslide, or fire away from ruin and very possibly survival.

So, instead of giving up and letting yourself end-it-all by instant gun-cop-shootout suicide, or not-so-fast suicide by opioids, or slow motion suicide by junk food, cigarettes and TV, wake up enough to find out who is actually worth voting for (let Bernie Sanders’s example be a template) and stop giving the usual pricks and prickesses your attention and ignorant support. If enough do this maybe in time we will see an improved people-oriented administration of the American Republic.

Look at the photos and news videos from Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, and sear this thought in your mind: I am only a 24-hour catastrophe away from those people, I am on hold to be the next destroyed Puerto Rico, we are all Americans, therefore I AM Puerto Rico.

Now, focus your outrage where it will do some good for us all.

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25 September 2017

The devastation caused in Puerto Rico by Hurricane Maria is shown in a series of photographs published by The Atlantic. As a matter of Constitutional duty, and simple human decency, it is essential that the Trump Administration move its ass and get assistance to the Island, much more and much faster. There are still people living in wreckage who have not been contacted since the Category 5 hurricane hit the Island about 5 days ago. The suffering and privation are universal (or almost nearly so), unsanitary conditions will spawn diseases for many if too little is done too late, and there could easily still be isolated injured and trapped people whose lives hang in the balance. Here is a clear emergency that requires a US President to act presidential, and an American government to actually demonstrate it is “exceptional.” The US news media has focused its sympathy and coverage of hurricane victims to Texas, Florida and the US Virgin Islands, and much less on Puerto Rico – where English is the second language. I see many parallels with the Palestinian Territories under Israeli Occupation. I would like it if the US Government acted so as to dispel that image from my mind.

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/09/disconnected-by-disasterphotos-from-a-battered-puerto-rico/540975/

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I Am Puerto Rico, So Are You
27 September 2017
https://dissidentvoice.org/2017/09/i-am-puerto-rico-so-are-you/

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Bajo El Sol — Español-English

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Bajo El Sol is a song published in 2016 by Diana Gameros, a Mexican woman presently living in the San Francisco Bay Area of California, USA. Diana Gameros is an independent musical artist (she produces her own recordings), who accompanies her singing with her classical guitar. This song is a nice example of Diana Gameros’s style of music and performance, which I would classify as trova mexicana (Mexican troubadour). Diana Gameros’s published comments about this song are as follows:

“A love letter to the homeland. A song dedicated to all those who have left their country of origin and who, despite of how dark things can be back home, are counting the days until they can see it again.”

“I miss you. I know your body is gray but I can see the little light that still shines on, my dear and wounded lightning bug. I am coming to you soon and when I do, we will help each other heal our wounds, we will bathe in the sun of your truth”

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Bajo El Sol
Diana Gameros
https://youtu.be/b_VE8N46LC8

entre nosotros hay un río
y novecientos días más
de mi memoria el olvido
quiere arrancarte
pero no podrá
quiere arrancarte
pero no podrá

traigo debajo del brazo
un libro llenito de historias
te las ofrezco toditas, todas!
hoy que la vida no sobra (*)

traigo debajo del brazo
un libro llenito de historias
buenas, malas, largas, cortas
te las ofrezco toditas
gritan mi pena y mi gloria
hoy te las canto toditas, todas!
hoy que la vida nos sobra
bajo el sol de tu verdad

quiero en mis ojos recuerdos
que me hablen de tu querer
mares y valles de sobra
y yo sin poderlos ver

quiero en mi oído un susurro
vientos que vengan de Uxmal
cantos de aves al aire, libres
que no he podido escuchar
bajo el sol de tu verdad

ni todas las flores marchitas
que abundan en tu jardín
ni el rojo de tu piel quemándose viva
harán que me olvide de ti

y aunque tu cuerpo sea gris
mis ojos distinguen tu luz
tierna luciérnaga herida
quiero brillar donde brillas tu

y aunque tu cuerpo sea gris
mis ojos distinguen la luz que te queda
tierna luciérnaga mía
juntas nos curaremos la vida
bajo el sol de tu verdad

bajo el sol de tu verdad
bajo el sol de tu verdad

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(Lyrics above as posted by Diana Gameros on her YouTube page for “Bajo El Sol.”)

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Under Your Sun
(“Bajo el Sol” by Diana Gameros, English translation by MG,Jr.)

A river flows between us two
streaming past nine hundred days
of memories holding you
that forgetfulness wants to yank
but won’t be able,
that forgetfulness wants to yank
but won’t be able.

Beneath my arm I’m bringing you
a book full to brimming with stories.
I offer every one to you, all yours!,
today with no living to spare. (*)

Beneath my arm I’m bringing you
a book full to brimming with stories,
good ones, bad ones, long ones, short ones,
I offer every one to you, all yours!
They cry out my pains and my glories.
Today I will sing them all to you,
today we have living to spare
under the sun of your truth.

In my eyes I want remembrances
that speak to me of your caring
with oceans and valleys to spare
that now I’ll not be seeing.

In my ear I want to have whispers
of breezes that come from Uxmal,
of songs by birds on the wing, and free,
as I’ve not been able to listen
under the sun of your truth.

Neither all of the faded flowers
that mound up in your garden,
nor your reddening skin burning itself alive,
are able to make me forget you.

And even if your body were gray
my eyes could distinguish your light
you tender and wounded firefly.
I want to shine wherever you’re bright.

And even if your body were gray
my eyes could distinguish your light remaining,
my tender firefly, shining.
Together, we’ll cure ourselves living
under the sun of your truth.

Under the sun of your truth,
under the sun of your truth.

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(*) If the “no” in “hoy que la vida no sobra” was actually supposed to be “nos”, then the English translation should read: “today we have living to spare.”

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Juramento — Español-English

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Juramento
[Miguel Matamoros, 1894-1971 (Cuba)]

(Introducción)

Si el amor hace sentir hondos dolores
y condena vivir entre miserias,
yo te diera mi bien por tus amores
hasta la sangre que hierve en mis arterias,
hasta la sangre que hierve en mis arterias.

(Interludio como la introducción)

Si el amor hace sentir hondos dolores
y condena vivir entre miserias,
yo te diera mi bien por tus amores
hasta la sangre que hierve en mis arterias,
hasta la sangre que hierve en mis arterias.

Si es surtidor de místicos pesares
y hace al hombre arrastrar largas cadenas,
yo te juro arrastrarlas por los mares
infinitos y negros de mis penas,
infinitos y negros de mis penas.

(Interludio como la introducción)

Si es surtidor de místicos pesares
y hace al hombre arrastrar largas cadenas,
yo te juro arrastrarlas por los mares
infinitos y negros de mis penas,
infinitos y negros de mis penas.

(Acordes final).

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Oath of Love

(Introduction)

To be in love can make you feel such deep sorrows
and condemn you to live with many miseries;
and I swear I would give my all for your loving
even the blood from my arteries that is boiling,
even the blood from my arteries that is boiling.

(Interlude, like introduction)

To be in love can make you feel such deep sorrows
and condemn you to live with many miseries;
and I swear I would give my all for your loving
even the blood from my arteries that is boiling,
even the blood from my arteries that is boiling.

I’m pumping out streams of mystical grieving,
and made to drag those weights behind with long chains binding;
and I swear I would drag them through the oceans,
infinite and black with disappointments,
infinite and black with disappointments.

(Interlude, like introduction)

I’m pumping out streams of mystical grieving,
and made to drag those weights behind with long chains binding
and I swear I would drag them through the oceans,
infinite and black with disappointments,
infinite and black with disappointments.

(Final chords)

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LITERAL:

Juramento
Oath

(Introduction)

Si el amor hace () sentir hondos dolores
If the love makes (one) feel deep pains

y condena vivir entre miserias,
and condemns to-live within miseries

yo te diera mi bien por tus amores
I to-you would-give my good for your loves

hasta la sangre que hierve en mis arterias,
up-to the blood that boils in my arteries

hasta la sangre que hierve en mis arterias.
up-to the blood that boils in my arteries

(Interlude)

[repeat first stanza]

Si es surtidor de místicos pesares
If it-is pump of mystical griefs

y hace al hombre arrastrar largas cadenas,
and makes the man drag long chains

yo te juro arrastrarlas por los mares
I to-you swear drag-them through the seas

infinitos y negros de mis penas,
infinite and black from my hardships/sorrows/“shames”-(as plural noun)

infinitos y negros de mis penas.
infinite and black from my hardships/sorrows/“shames”-(as plural noun).

(Interlude, like introduction)

[repeat second stanza]

(Final chords)

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Trío Matamoros: Juramento – (letra y acordes)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H0kecq3u4Rg

Juramento — Eva Griñán & Gabino Jardines
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7e3reT8epms

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