Beers & Books (423) – Mercè Rodoreda: Short stories

La meva Cristina i altres contes
*
My Christina & Other Stories 

 

Mercè Rodoreda (10 October 1908 – 13 April 1983)

Laughing Lhursday*

Fortune favours fools,
or as a German saying goes,
"Die dümmsten Bauern
ernten die größten Kartoffeln."
/
"The dumbest farmers
harvest the biggest potatoes".

Once again I feel relieved. 

* [For first time visitors]: Typo in the title? Nah. It's just that
I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

 

One stem, four colours

...

Coffee time with Pavlova & Mr B

Pawlowa
or how to smuggle a donkey halfway around the world
*
Certainly neither the original title (‘The White Umbrella’)
nor the writer (Brian Sewell) would have piqued my interest.
Being sometimes a donkey myself, though,
I could not resist the German title. ;-)
For an enjoyable read ...

Mr B, a fifty-year-old Briton, is travelling with a television crew in Peshawar, Pakistan, to make a film about the country's history. When he sees a heavily laden donkey foal covered in wounds by the side of the road during a car journey, he decides not to take the flight back to London scheduled for the following day. Instead, he wants to walk to London with the young donkey mare, whom he names after the Russian ballet dancer Pavlova because of her long legs. With only the bare essentials, including a white umbrella from the London umbrella shop James Smith & Sons, the two set off.
Translated from the German Wikipedia entry.

He says it for me

Escric per viure.
O bé al revés, tal volta:
visc per escriure. 

 Miquel Martí i Pol

I write for living.
Or vice versa, this time:
I live for writing. 

Friday is Skyday

Tonight, 30 or 40 swallows were hunting for their dinner.
But no matter how hard I tried,
I could never get more than four in one photo.

They are so incredibly fast.

 

Laughing Lhursday*

Living room idyll
designed by granddaughter

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration.

 

Pretty cool it was

Eilean Donan Castle ...
around half past four in the morning,
when the pub had closed its doors.
*
Memories of morning freshness 
on a very hot day 27 years later. ;-)

The scum of America

"Listen," I say. "Isn't that great? The future ex-president of the United States is ordering National Guard units to Washington because he wants to 'take back his beautiful capital city'."  
No reaction.
"He wants to reduce the allegedly enormous crime rate and drive all the homeless people out of his city."
For a while, it seemed as if Tetrapilotamos, who is currently very busy proofreading his 1,669-page masterpiece ‘Pre-Assyrian Philately in a Nutshell,’ wasn't listening to me at all.
But then I hear him mutter: "Fact is, the illiteracy rate in Washington, D.C. is higher than in Cuba. Same goes for the crime rate.
The real scum of America these days is to be found in the White House, though, ... to tell the truth.”

Thistle feast

Most two-legged neighbours don't like thistles in their gardens, unaware that they are in the minority ...

... as the buzzing and humming inhabitants of Seanhenge prove.

They love thistles, especially these globe thistles (Echinops).

Coffee time with Lluís Llach

Les dones de la Principal
*
[There does obviously exist no English version]

Lluís Llach *7 May 1948

Seanhenge these days

 

Just a glimpse.

Balcony djungle.

Apples and prune plums.

Prune plums.

Apples.

Plums
[as an aside: super delicious]

Many people would not be able to imagine
what grows in and beneath this apparent chaos.

Potatoes, for example.

Friday is Skyday

Baboons ... observing Seanhenge ...

Laughing Lhursday*

As in any well-organised household, everything preserved at Seanhenge is labelled and dated.
So I was all the more surprised when I recently opened a tin of homemade tomato puree to prepare a tomato sauce “à la Sean”:

Instead of the usual date, I read: 
“The day before Goethe's 275th birthday”.
Sometimes I even make myself smile.

P.S.: Can any of my kind visitors 
tell me on which day I was in such a playful mood?

* [For first time visitors]:

Typo in the title?
Nah. It's just that I would not let a tiny T spoil an avantgardistic alliteration. 

Little dead swallow

Granddaughter sitting in the courtyard, observing three swallow nests and looking around. Suddenly a small cry. ‘Grandpa, oh no! A little bird.’ – On my way to the garage, I return and glance into the drain: ‘Ah, no, it's but a leaf.’

To cut a long story short:
Granddaughter's eagle eyes were right.
So I advised her to find a leaf.

We place the little swallow on it.
When I return from shopping, I hear
the little creature has been given a solemn burial.

On the road

Homeward ...

Just three thoughts

It is interesting to see how a psychopath can dominate the news.

It is interesting to see how journalists allow themselves to be dominated by a psychopath.

The smarter one gives in. ... That is why the stupid rule the world.

Coffeetime "À rebours". ;-)

A rebours.

 Joris-Karl Huysmans (5 February 1848 – 12 May 1907)

Saturday Night Music – Lluís Llach: L'Estaca

 

Lluís Llach *7 May 1948

Lyrics: Original and English translation

Friday is Skyday

On leaving the village.