Ok so this is time to talk about Spain, and this time on rather serious subjects in our history. The weather in Madrid is nice at 49F or about 9C no rain and it predicted the same for the rest of the week.
Therefore, let me tell you a bit about the history of Spain still lingering.
One of the few women who, at that time, had the honor of entering as an academic of merit for the painting of History at the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in San Fernando. A unique artistic career that the National Library recovers through the exhibition ‘ Drawings of Rosario Weiss (1814-1843) ‘, open to the public until next April 22nd. Rosario Weiss was born in 1814, being the third daughter of Leocadia Zorrilla and Isodoro Weiss, a German Jewish jeweler based in Madrid. But it was not until 1817 when his mother decided to settle down as housekeeper of the Quinta del Sordo or farm of the deaf.” The farm owned by Francisco de Goya at that time on the outskirts of Madrid. Goya loved her as a daughter: in a letter to Leocadia refers to her as “My Rosario”, in another wrote to his friend Ferrer asks him to treat her as his daughter . ” In the autumn of 1824, following in the footsteps of Goya, Leocadia Zorrilla and his two sons arrived in Bordeaux. Months after settling down with him, Rosario entered the public school of drawing that led by the master Pierre Lacour . The death of Goya in 1828 left Leocadia, who at that time was considered his sentimental partner in a difficult position. Although she recounted in letters after the death that, in her last moments, the Aragonese painter wanted to make a testament in her favor, the hatred that professed to each other with the only surviving son of Goya condemned her to spent some difficult years. According to friends they were able to sustain themselves thanks to a pension that Leocadia obtained from the French government as political exiled and to the support of his circle of friends from exiled Spaniards and of Pierre LaCour, the professor of Weiss in Bordeaux.” The hardships ended in 1833, when amnesty for the exiled liberals allowed Leocadia and his children to returned to Madrid. At that time, Rosario, at the age of 19, began working as a copyist at the Prado museum and then at the Academy of San Fernando ;after 1840 Rosario Weiss got to be admitted as an professor in San Fernando, an appointment that, provided personal and professional prestige and she used it as collateral in her request to occupy the position of Master drawer of the daughters of king Fernando VII as he had died seven years earlier. The arrival to the power of the Liberals in March 1841 led to the renovation of the personnel responsible for the education of the heir to the throne and his sister, who sought to keep away from the interference of his mother, exiled in France. Rosario Weiss was selected thanks to “her good training, her liberal profile and also for the fact of being a woman”. She did drawings for Queen Isabel II and Luisa Fernanda of Bourbon as shown in the exposition in the Biblioteca Nacional or National Library. Delicate health did not allow Weiss to have time to teach the Queen much more, and just a year after she had started practicing as the “royal teacher” she died of cholera. However ,as told by many her legacy has been preserved intact to show, in an exhibition like the National Library, that one day not too long ago an artist as few knew in Spain was a pupil of one of the greatest masters and teacher of a Queen. More here: https://www.esmadrid.com/en/whats-on/rosario-weiss-1814-1843-drawings-biblioteca-nacional?utm_referrer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.esmadrid.com%2Ffr%2Fagenda%2Frosario-weiss-1814-1843-dessins-bibliotheque-nationale
Malva (Editions Rey Naranjo), the first novel by the Dutch poet Hagar Peeters. It has been 84 years and Peeters shakes the mantle of mystery that for eight decades covered the life of this girl with hydrocephalus, Malva Marina, hidden and repudiated by his own father, one of the greatest poets in history. Malvita, as they treated her in the family, came to the world in Madrid in 1934 and died at the age of eight in Gouda, the Dutch city that gives name to the famous cheese. She was the daughter of Pablo Neruda, unique and legitimate, the result of his marriage to Maria Hagenaar Vogelzang-ling-, with whom he had married in Java four years earlier. We are on August 18, 1934, two years before the Spanish Civil war erupts. Malva was just born in a hospital in Madrid. And in principle nothing makes you suppose that that big-head creature, to which they have baptized as Malva Marina Trinidad Reyes Basoalto, rather than to unite their parents, will be the beginning of a tragedy. Malva, was born with a disproportionate head, the result of a hydrocephalus that heralded a premature, irremediable death. But in Neruda, pseudonym under which was hidden the Chilean Ricardo Eliécer Naphtali Reyes Basoalto, the birth of a sick daughter was out of all its calculations. First he hid it is a perfectly ridiculous being, “he said,” a kind of semicolon “-and then he erased the” three kilo vamp “of his life, abandon forever. Not only was she the first wife of the prize-winning writer, she was also the mother of Malva Marina, her only and failed descendant. After meeting in a tennis match held in one of the most refined clubs in Java, Neruda and Ling were married. Probably by then he would maintain some relationship with the Argentinean Delia of the Lane, the ant, for which he would then abandon his wife and daughter. In 1936 the poet definitively leaves his wife and child to go to live with the ant. It leaves them almost without money in Montecarlo, city to which they arrive fleeing the Civil war. Ling crosses all France with her sick girl until arriving in Holland, where it settles in the city of Gouda. Mother and daughter go hungry and hardship. Ling lives in pensions and works on what she finds while her child leaves her in the care of a Christian family. He pleads with Neruda to send him money to feed his daughter: “My last penny will be spent on sending this letter.” Said Neruda. The daughter forgotten by the Nobel Prize of Literature died on March 2, 1943 in Gouda, where it is buried, away from the sea where the flower of the marine mallow grows. She was eight years old. Her mother, through the consulate of Chile in The Hague warns Neruda of the death of the little girl and asks him to meet him. The silence was his response “Malva” (edited by Rey Naranjo), the first novel by the Dutch writer Hagar Peeters, is now on sale. So sad story and so bad for Neruda, change my opinion of him. The editor is here: http://www.reynaranjo.net/index.html#
More on the book in Spanish here: http://www.librosyletras.com/2017/06/malva-hagar-peeters-rey-naranjo.html
Consuelo Ordóñez, president of the Collective of victims of terrorism and sister of Gregorio Ordóñez (murdered in 1995). The “What happened” of his words refers to the history of violence and social exclusion that has been experienced in the Basque Country for the last 50 years. And Patria is obviously the novel by which Fernando Aramburu picked up last Monday the Fundacion Umbral Award for Best book published in Spain in 2017, and promoted by the newspaper El MUNDO, the newspaper that the writer chose for his Years of fulfillment. “For me, the value of the novel is the way we calls each of us, the way we asks us where we were and what we did, whether we look to the other side or not, “explains Gorka Maneiro, former parliamentarian of Union Progreso and democracy in Basque Parliament and victim of an attack of the Kale Borroka in the year 2000. You have to read Patria; really, you have to read it because there are things you will not understand until you read the novel, because it is not the same to be a victim of ETA in Seville than in the Basque Country ‘. And here comes a description of vexations that will sound to any reader of Aramburu: The human pack, the graffiti on the walls, friends who cease to be friends, victims become guilty… and movies? Not much, actually. Only Fuego (fire), of Luis Marias, appears in the memory. The cinema still awaits its Patria (motherland) More here: https://www.politico.eu/article/basque-novel-evokes-unresolved-history-of-violence-fernando-aramburu-patria-spain/
What better way to celebrate your 10th anniversary as the first ballerina of the Royal Ballet. And it is that on Monday, Laura Morera (Madrid, 1977) starred in the stage of Covent Garden Giselle, the great romantic title par excellence and a challenging interpretative challenge that took well. But, in addition, on Tuesday, it was Paulina in winter story, a total immersion in the world of Shakespeare, with acclaimed choreography of Christopher Wheeldon, when it had scarcely detached from the previous tutu. With Giselle-“It was only the third time she danced it,” and discovers-she was hailed as soon as she came out to greet at the end and, after a winter story, the applause of the audience was excited. She says “If I could make such a long career, and still continue, it is because of the artistic richness that we live in the Royal Ballet. The dancers do not have the popularity of the actors, but the dance is a very respected art in the United Kingdom and the public is very understood. ” I feel very supported by the public. I have sacrificed a lot to adapt to this style and I am always rewarded with applause. I’m so happy. ” Morera is one of the most solid dancers of the Royal Ballet, company in which she joined as a body of dance in 1995, after having studied in this school since 11 yrs old, and in which she continues, therefore, more than half life will be with the next emission in cinemas of summer on February 28th, when you can see her play this key character for the outcome of this story of love, jealousy and reconciliation Winter story is a ballet with a special expressiveness by which her intense history is perfectly understood and, With William Shakespeare’s permission, you don’t miss the words. Lauren Cuthbertson plays Hermione, Ryochi Hirano, is Lionesses, Sarah Lamb, her daughter Perdita and Vadim Muntagirov, the beloved of, Florizel. Awarded in 2016 with the National Dance Award, the most prestigious award given by British critics. More here: http://www.roh.org.uk/productions/the-winters-tale-by-christopher-wheeldon
The rumors of a definitive closing were only that, rumors, because the Casa del Libro Gran Via has already communicated to its partners that will make “a temporary closure (six months) to undertake a reform work” starting last Friday. Taking advantage of the works that will be carried out in the building so that Cristiano Ronaldo (Real Madrid) can raise his first hotel in Madrid, the bookshop will be reformed to «offer a new model and a new concept the Casa del Libro will be fired up with two days of frantic activity ;Literary starting tomorrow Wednesday afternoon with the visit of the mouse Geronimo Stilton (17h30 ), character protagonist of the series of books homonymous written by Elisabetta Dami. An hour later, the presentation and signature of copies of the book “Make Up” will be held with her author Silvia Quirós, who also teaches a special effects workshop open to the public the turn for poetry will arrive on Thursday from 18h30 pm. , when the bookstore will receive Luis García Piedehierro, Victoria Ash and Carlos Salem to share an evening of recitals. Also on Thursday, from 19h30 on the ground floor will be held one of the activities star of this farewell with the signature of samples by a large troop of fashion writers such as Lorenzo Silva, Blue Jeans, nurse saturated, Angela Quintas , Sara Herranz or Margarita García. To finish the day, from 21h30, will offer a icing only reserved for the members, a very special surprise literary event before closing the doors of the Casa del Libro until after the summer. The bookshop, the oldest in Madrid occupies the first three floors of the building located at number 29 of Gran Vía. With this reform the third floor will be eliminated to obtain a much more spacious second level. That third floor will be left by the future Cristiano Ronaldo Hotel. In return will yield more space in the second floor. The webpage of Casa del Libro : https://www.casadellibro.com/nosotros/tienda/gran-via-29/1?idprovincia=28&idciudad=6&idlibreria=1
There are 101.397 bars in Spain or one for each 458 inhabitants! , according to the Federación Española de Hostelería y Restauración (Spanish federation of hotellery and restaurants) . The most expensive city to have a beer is Madrid, at 2,93 euros, while Cádiz is the cheapest at 1,25 euros. These are the results of a survey by Cuponation. Taking into account 103 bars in the 51 provincial capitals and two autonomous cities where it was also found the average price for a glass of beer in Spain is 1,87 euros . By community, Madrid once again is leading with the most expensive beer (even thus I paid 70c for a caña in Alcalà de Henares::)) followed by País Vasco, 2,29 euros, and Baleares, 2,25 euros. At the other extreme , it was found the cheapest region to be Extremadura with an average price of 1,38 euros; follow by Murcia 1,60 and Castilla-La Mancha at 1,75 euros. And you are thinking of having a free tapa with the glass of beer , well that custom is coming down too as only 58,5% of the 103 bars in the survey claims to offer it Here is the full report in 20Minutos newspaper : https://www.20minutos.es/noticia/3074430/0/cuanto-cuesta-cerveza-espana/
There you go, my beloved dear Spain, or Spain everything under the Sun. Enjoy your week everyone, Cheers!!
Paris1972-Versailles2003 