Segovian shenanigans

Brad is visiting from San Francisco this week, so on Sunday we went on a little excursion to Segovia. A town famous for its Roman aqueduct:





its delicious local culinary specialty, the cochinillo, or suckling pig (YUM):





and assorted historical sculptures and statues:



There's also the Alcazar, the Cathedral, and about a gazillion other churches, though - it pains me to break the news - the museum of witchcraft closed last year due to poor attendance.

Nonetheless, Brad managed to track down what might reasonably be considered the most hideously inappropriate, ugliest souvenir your imagination could possibly conjure up. As this is a family blog, more or less, it is entirely impossible for me to provide photographic evidence. Let's just refer to it as a carved wooden "male fertility idol", and if that doesn't conjure the right kind of graphic image in your mind, perhaps the words "grotesquely oversized genitalia" will do the trick.

Now, far be it from me to criticize the souvenir choices of any of my houseguests, though frankly, my slight (and understandable, if you saw the bloody monstrosity) embarrassment when he insisted on roping me in as an interpreter during the purchase seemed to provoke an unnecessary amount of glee on his part.

Tables were turned when we got to the station on the way home, however, because all the bubble wrap in the world won't save you from embarrassment when you have to put your fertility idol with the grotesquely oversized genitalia through the X-ray screening machine required to board the train from Segovia to Madrid. I'm ashamed to admit that the one doing the gleeful cackling at that point was me.

We had a great day in Segovia.

I'm pleased to say that I managed to convince Brad that it wasn't really necessary to take the idol out of its bubble wrap for the cleaning lady's benefit yesterday

New York, New York

I haven't yet made it to the Shackleton exhibition ("Trapped in the Ice"), but I did visit the collection of photos of WeeGee's New York on display in the Telefónica Building at the other end of Calle Valverde on Friday afternoon. There were around 200 photos in what turned out to be a really fascinating (and free) exhibition. I believe the three shown below do not have copyright restrictions:










Here is the link to the Telefónica website:

http://www.fundacion.telefonica.com/arteytecnologia/exposiciones/weegee.htm

Bizarre confectionery dispenser dioramas

Anyone following my (poorly organized) photostream on Flickr may be baffled by the inclusion of a number of photos like the one below.



There is no satisfactory "explanation", except to say that boredom on a Sunday evening and way too much time on my hands contributed to the first in this series. Before I could stop myself, a tradition was born, and now Sunday would seem incomplete without assembling another one and posting the photographic evidence. I am worried that the polar bear dispenser planned for next weekend appears to be temporarily out of stock, but hopeful that the situation can be remedied before Sunday rolls around.

Yes. It's true. I am 8 years old. Given the right headgear, I could be a South Park character.

He lives in the coffin. He drinks of the blood.

A recurring theme in this blog is the way that traveling can bring out different facets of one's personality. The combination of novelty, anonymity, and sometimes sheer necessity, leads you to do things en route that you might never consider at home.

Despite that promising opening, there are no major confessions to follow - sorry to get anyone's hopes up. But a small illustration is provided by my behavior in restaurants and cafés. Back in the U.S., my preferred interaction with waiters is to as cordially brief and to the point as possible, a probable reaction against the "waiter as buddy" model adopted by far too many eating establishments. Here in Spain, it's quite the reverse - I will engage even the surliest of waiters in conversation. Partly it's a desire to see if I can make a dent in the surly exterior, partly it's because the reason I'm here is to converse with Spanish people (so waiters qualify). It helps to know that one is anonymous - what have I got to lose - and there's always a readymade excuse. Since I generally have something that I'm reading, underlining the unknown vocabulary words, if nothing else I can always ask what a particular word means.

The answers to this opening line can range from brusque and boring to engaging and entertaining. One of my favorite recent responses was in answer my asking the meaning of the word "ataúd". The waiter puzzled for a moment as to how best to explain, then broke into a wide grin and explained:

"El ataúd es donde vive el Conde Dracula" (it's where Count Dracula lives).

I couldn't have put it more succinctly myself.

The little coffin shown in the picture is on display in the Alcazar, the old fortress/museum that is one of the highlights of Segovia, which we visited on Sunday. The story that goes with it is a sad one. At some point in the castle's history, a particularly unlucky royal nanny had the misfortune to drop the baby princeling in her charge from the ramparts. Rather than face disgrace and certain death as punishment, she flung herself to her death after him. The coffin is alleged to have contained the little royal remains (seems kind of unlikely). One imagines that the nanny's remains fared less well.

MAD COWS

Photographic documentation of the mad cow invasion is an ongoing process, so check out the VACAS LOCAS link (in the column on the right) from time to time to be sure to see the most current version.

Have a cupcake

If anyone is wondering why text entries are relatively scarce on the blog at the moment, it's partly because my friend Brad arrived from San Francisco yesterday, so I will be busy playing tour guide this weekend and for much of next week. Also because school takes 7 hours a day, and because I am a lazy blogger, to boot. I promise to try harder at the weekend.

But, for right now, it's time to head out to see "Atrapados en el Hielo" (Trapped in the Ice), the exposition about the Shackleton expedition. And maybe catch the exhibition of photos by Weejee (sp?) in the Telefónica Building down the street.

Have I mentioned how much I LOVE Madrid?

Pegacow

In the apartment

Here is a picture of the apartment. Although it is pretty IKEA-ish, it's not quite as bleakly sterile as the photo might suggest. I just uploaded a bunch of other photos of the apartment, the street of hideous lamp shops, and two new cows (yea!!) to Flickr:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/gaelstat/

I don't know who either of the people in the apartment pictures are, or if indeed they are supposed to represent actual persons.

Book Review : A Melon for Ecstasy

A MELON FOR ECSTASY

by John Fortune and John Wells


Quite simply the funniest book I have ever read in my life. Written as a series of letters; as the correspondence mounts, the overall message becomes hilariously clear. Never get between a man and his trees.

Starring Humphrey Mackevoy, a man who loves trees, maybe a little too much. The sudden epidemic of holes bored into local trees, all 33 inches from the ground at an angle of 15 degrees to the horizontal, has everyone in town buzzing. The authorities are outraged at such wanton vandalism, the police are on high alert, the ornithological society is ecstatic, believing that the fabulously rare crested woodpecker has returned to the British Isles. Humphrey is more concerned with occupational hazards like splinter wounds and the toxic effects of the new pesticide being sprayed on the trees.

What with the prison chaplain dedicated to making the Gospel more relevant by rewriting it as a Western (Posse from Galilee), assorted power-crazed local councillors, a sex-crazed sixteen-year-old girl desperate to get laid, and the ever-present Humphrey's Mummy, there is never a dull moment.

Given the spicy gumbo that the authors have concocted, rich with every hilarious village archetype you've ever come across, the tree-porn sections are lagniappe. A certain bewitching laburnum stirs Humphrey to flights of soft-porn eloquence:

"Lasciviously I turned my face, brushing the cold bark with my lips, and began to explore its texture with my tongue. And you couldn't stop me, my laburnum, you with your branches pinioned in the air, leaving your trunk so bare, so bare, so unprotected, so vulnerable..."

Possibly the finest epistolary novel ever written.

(Fiesta de) Despedida de Soltera

Spanish for "hen party", and extremely popular on Saturday nights in Madrid. Last night, during my random wanderings, I encountered three, and had some drunken señorita flash me her boobies from a limousine.

By reputation, hen parties are now more boisterous than stag parties, throughout Europe. I am reliably informed that the town of Kilkenny has banned hen parties in perpetuity, after a particularly notorious night of debauchery some years back, in which squads of Gárdaí had to be summoned in from neighboring towns to quell the ongoing raucousness.

Rumor has it that the republic of Slovenia is also plagued by overly rowdy prenuptial public oestrogen-fests.

More ruthless rhymes

Little Willie, mean as hell
Drowned his sister in the well.
Mother said, while drawing water,
"Gee, it's hard to raise a daughter."

Little Willie found a mirror,
Went and sucked the mercury off,
Thinking in his childish error,
It would cure his whooping cough.
At the funeral, Willie's mother
Sadly said to Mrs. Brown,
"'Twas a chilly day for Willie
When the mercury went down."

(from "Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes" by Harry Graham, 1902)

Book Review -- Limits of Language

Another one of our occasional MOTP reviews (a positive one, this time). Obviously, it was written some time ago. But my delight in this book remains unabated:

Limits of Language

by Mikael Parkvall

"Limits of Language" arrived today from Amazon. I've never smoked crack, but reading this book approximates what I imagine it would feel like -- an initial rush of pure pleasure, followed by the irresistible craving for just one more bump, yielding to that craving over and over until - six hours later - you find yourself surrounded by cats not fed, laundry not done, unwashed dishes, unpaid bills, and yet you still can't stop yourself. You want more. You want it to last forever. Damn you, Mikael Parkvall! How could you write a book that caters so brilliantly to my utter fascination with words and all things language-related? And be so smart and funny too?

I just tore myself away to feed the cats and pass this message along to goodreads members. There are still three shopping weeks until Christmas. Nobody else appears to be listing this book. So - if you know anyone with an interest in words or language - buy them a copy. Their puppy-like gratitude will last all year. Heck, now that it's out in paperback, you can get your own copy for less than twenty bucks.

A pdf preview of the detailed table of contents and the first 19 pages is here:

http://www.wmjasco.com/limits/LLPreview.pdf

The table of contents at the link above is very detailed, but fails to capture the author's wit, and the sheer geekish zaniness of some of the topics. Some highlights -

A 30-page "linguist's calendar", marking the anniversary of various linguistic milestones (e.g. 'birth of Kanzi, the most talking ape there is';'the Dalmatian language becomes extinct, when the last surviving speaker accidentally steps on a landmine') giving linguists an excuse to celebrate throughout the year.

Habla Usted Phrase-Bookish? A side-splitting selection of useless phrases culled from phrasebooks around the world. For instance -

"At what time were these branches eaten by the rhinoceros?"
"I have my own syringe".
"The beast had a human body, the feet of a buck, and a horn on its head".
"I don't play the violin, but I love cheese".

Untranslatable Words: e.g. the Kuot word aFone "to drink from a bottle in such a fashion that drool trickles from the mouth back into the bottle", the Czech umudrovat se "to philosophize oneself into the madhouse", or the Ciluba word ilunga "a person who is willing to forgive any abuse for the first time, to tolerate it a second time, but never a third time".

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to get back to reading about the word's most dadaistic verb morphology*.

I don't play the violin, but I LOVE this book!


* Oh, OK. Here is the paragraph in question:

Linguists are supposed to take languages seriously. We are not supposed to laugh at them. So, apologies to all Kobon speakers out there, but I just can't help it. The prize for the language with the verb morphology most looking like it had been thought up by Tristan Tzara must go to Kobon. If there are any sceptics among the readers, here follows the suffixal paradigm for the counterfactual mood in Kobon:

1sg -- bnep 1du -- blop 1pl -- bnop
2sg -- bnap 2du -- blep 2pl -- bep
3sg -- böp 3du -- blep 3pl -- blap

The Quiet Man

It may look inviting, and I'm sure those 5€ mojitos are delicious. But, lemme tell you, the ambience can only be described as distinctly creepy. Not in a good way, either. More in a transvestite hooker kind of way. A pity, since it would be a good candidate for my local hangout, being right next door to the building my apartment's in.

Varmint Cuisine

Ever since I was bitten by an American gray squirrel (right), for a crime no worse than feeding it peanuts, it's no secret that I have not been a fan of this particular form of vermin. They are just rats with bushy tails, and don't let anyone try to convince you otherwise.

Thus, the news that Great Britain has instituted a campaign to save the native red squirrel population by encouraging the hunting and eating of the varmints on the right in the picture can only be considered a step forward for mankind. So, to my British readers out there, what are you waiting for? Shouldn't you be out there hunting to feed your family?

As the slogan puts it, "Eat a squirrel! Save a squirrel!"

Source: New York Times, January 7th, 2009

The Abstinence Teacher

Here at MOTP, we run occasional book reviews. Filtering out the dreck so that you don't have to.

WARNING: may not be entirely suitable for maiden aunts.

THE ABSTINENCE TEACHER
by Tom Perrotta.


JESUS WANTS YOU ........ TO GROW A PAIR.

Tommy, Tommy, Tommy! How did such a promising young literary stud like yourself turn out to be such an emasculated whore? When did things start to go so horribly, horribly wrong?

Let me be clear. When I picked you up at the airport in San Francisco, it was with entirely clear-eyed, realistic expectations. Let's face it. I wasn't looking for the literary love of my life. Just a two-plane romance - enough to while away the time it takes to get from SFO to Madrid. Maybe a little bathroom nookie during my stopover in Dulles. And believe me - I'm no snob about this s**t. I think there's everything to be said for the fleeting joy of airplane lit. Done right, it can be one of life's great pleasures. And the possibility can never be ruled out that it may lead to a deeper and more passionate commitment. I mean, look at Nate and Brenda in "Six Feet Under", and how well it worked out for them. Even the briefest of airport bathroom encounters is pregnant with possibility.

So I'll admit to a certain nervous excitement as I boarded the plane at SFO, your manly bulk in my pocket, pressing against my crotch in mute promise of pleasures yet to come. And for the first 20 pages or so, you didn't disappoint. There was wit, a sense of direction, a certain ability to nail characters with brisk efficiency within a couple of snappy paragraphs.

But I should have heeded the warning signs that were obvious right there in the book store. Even if the appalling cutesy biographical sketch could be excused as a horrendous contrivance foisted upon you by your publicist, there was that truly worrisome 'author portrait', which presumably you had to have approved at the very least. You know the one I'm talking about. The one where your desperate need to be liked permeates every line of the simpering come-hither rictus of a wistful little-lost-geisha-boy pout that you project to your potential johns. It might as well have been subtitled "me make you happy long time".

Did they teach you that at geisha school, Tommy? To try to be all things to all men? Because, here's the thing, eunuchboy. Let me let you in on a little secret. Nowadays even the sweatiest of Japanese salarymen no longer finds the response "Who would you like me to be?" even faintly arousing in answer to the question "Who are you?".

So that, when your thin excuse for a bold courageous novel touching on polemic issues related to sex education degenerated into an incoherent mess of not wanting to offend anybody under any circumstances, frankly my frustration increased in direct proportion to the flaccidity of your prose. What was particularly weird was that you were hardly fooling anyone with your lethally boring 150 pages of padding trying to cover up the moral vacuum at the heart of your cardboard ex-stoner Jesus freak.

And what about plot, Tommy? Do castrati get a pass?

WARNING....... POSSIBLE SPOILER AHEAD .... BUT ONLY IF YOU ARE REALLY, REALLY STUPID ... AS STUPID AS THE AUTHOR ... WHICH SEEMS UNLIKELY ...

Or is that what passes for resolution these days? Fading to black as hormonal Barbie and stoner Ken get it on. Despite the well-documented lack of genitalia of said eponymous action figurines.

And apparently of the author of this excessively wordy piece of trash of a book, devoid of almost any smidgen of intellectual content. Guaranteed to offend nobody. Unless, of course, you have a brain.

A ruthless rhyme

L'Enfant Glacé

When Baby's cries grew hard to bear,
I popped him in the Frigidaire.
I never would have done so if,
I'd known that he'd be frozen stiff.
My wife said: 'George, I'm so unhappé!
Our darling's now completely frappé!

(from "Ruthless Rhymes for Heartless Homes", 1902, by Harry Graham)

Serendipity

I hadn't intended to see "My Name is Harvey Milk" tonight. But I had a hard time finding the movie theatre, so that by the time I got there, the film I'd intended to see was already 15 minutes underway, so I chose Harvey Milk instead. It just blew me away - extraordinarily moving, and Sean Penn's performance has to be among the top five performances I've seen by any actor or actress. In anything. Ever.

I'm still so jazzed by the film it's hard to consider going to bed. But it's midnight, so I'd best call it a day for now.

A truly wonderful movie, all the better for having stumbled across it serendipitously.

Some cows are scarier than others

En la Escuela

So, classes started yesterday, and once again I am left to ponder the eternal question - what is it about studying advanced Spanish that makes it a virtually exclusively female pursuit? I am the only guy in a class of 8. It's odd, because there are plenty of male students in the school - they just apparently never make it through to the most advanced levels.

I'm also the oldest, though not egregiously so - the age mix is definitely better than in Buenos Aires. Once again, my classmates make the mistake of underestimating me, presumably on the entirely erroneous assumption that anyone over 50 must essentially be some kind of doddering escapee from the senior citizens' center. Why then, was I the only one to know that the Smurfs are called "los pitufos" en español (a term also used as a synonym for the English phrase "rug rats")?
Or that this gentleman:



is called "Bob Esponja".

I also know the names of the seven dwarves in Thpanish, but I didn't want to show off. (OK, just a little: "Grumpy" is "Gruñon" and "Sleepy" is "Dormilón").

In other news, all of Madrid is bery bery happy that Penelope won the Oscar. This was the first thing I learned when I showed up for class yesterday morning, even before taking the placement test. El País ran a whole special on her, including the most hilarious picture of her first communion class, wherein she can already be seen preening in ostentatiously diva-like fashion. My sources here inform me reliably that she and Javier Bardem are an item. Also that the Bardem family run a restaurant right in the neighborhood. Which, believe me, I fully intend to track down.

My readers deserve nothing less.

Saturday afternoon stroll

Just being out and about in Madrid is enough to cheer a body up. Check it out for yourself:

Saturday afternoon pictures

Vacas Locas

Mad Cow Pictures

Settling in

I'd forgotten just how completely crazy Madrid can be -- people out and about at all hours of the day and night. Yesterday was a terrific day -- got some necessary chores taken care of in the morning. Then, as if to make me feel at home, when I went out to get some lunch (around 2pm or so), in quick succession, a few random occurrences helped dispel that "alone in the big city" feeling.

The first was, just as I was leaving the building, I bumped into the mailman who was vainly scanning the mailboxes for a "David Giltinan". It seemed impossible, as I hadn't remembered giving the address to anyone. But no, when I talked to my Scottish friend Yvonne on Saturday before leaving S.F. I had given her the address, and sure enough - he had a welcoming letter from Yvonne to brighten my day. Then, when I reached ROOT, one of my favorite restaurants from when I was here last time, the hostess greeted me, all smiles - and remembered me, even to the point of asking after my cats "with the Russian names". Now, granted, this was just professional hospitality on her part, but I'd be lying if I said it didn't feel nice to be remembered and welcomed. Later on in the afternoon, just wandering along, I spied a familiar face - someone waving at me from one of the little cafes - it was Pedro, director of the DonQuijote school. So that, all of a sudden, I didn't feel quite so far from home.

All in all, an afternoon that made me feel welcome to be back in Madrid, and not quite so anonymous. I'm really psyched about starting classes again on Monday morning. It'll be interesting to see how much of my Spanish I remember, and whether I picked up any really bad linguistic habits down in Buenos Aires.

The key to happiness

Well, I'm not claiming to have any definitive answers. But I think it must have something to do with being able to stick the right kind of plug in the right kind of hole and have it fit.

And although I did arrive at this conclusion after an hour and a half searching through Chueca, Madrid's ultra-chic gay ghetto, you can all get your collective mind out of the gutter and rest assured that my search was through various hardware stores. Looking for just the right adapter that would allow me to use the expensive battery charger I bought in Buenos Aires for my camera battery here in Madrid.

So when I found just the right adapter in the fourth store I tried, for only 2€, I was one happy customer indeed. Equally cheering was the sheer helpfulness of the guys in each of the first three stores I tried. In that totally straight middle-aged helpful hardware store guy kind of way, not at all like the cruisy gay hardware store guy kind of way one encounters at Cliff's Hardware on Castro Street. Not that I spend much time hanging out at Cliff's, or any other hardware stores. As those of you who know me hardly need to be reminded.

But anyway, for this morning, it's mission accomplished. The battery she is charging. So that later on I can go out and get appropriate photographic documentation of the cows that seem to have taken over the streets of Madrid.

Watch this space.

The Barren Nihilistic Wasteland

Spanish TV. I'd forgotten just how appallingly dreadful it is. I lose IQ points just thinking about it. Dear God.

Greetings from Madrid

Yes, folks! Rather than spend February and March mooning around in the cold in San Francisco, I thought it would be more fun to do so in Madrid. So aquí estoy, figuring out yet again how to work this very ethpanish keyboard. I´ve already had to stop by FNAC to buy a mouse (el ratón); my general lack of physical coordination means I am most emphatically not a trackball kind of guy.

I got here on Tuesday -- have spent an inordinate amount of time sleeping since then. But have managed to get out and about enough to check some of my favorite haunts. Will be starting school on Monday - given my usual lack of restraint about these things it will be 7 hours a day of class for the next seven weeks. Though I´m glad to say last year's time in Buenos Aires and Guanajuato were obviously of some use - when I stopped by the school yesterday afternoon to finalize registration details, I managed to acquit myself fairly well.

DonQuijote (the school) has moved to much larger, more luxurious digs since I was here last. I am staying in an apartment I found online and that I've rented for two months until mid-April. it's close to where I stayed last time, so I know the neighborhood, and it's about a 15-minute walk to school, which seems ideal. Given the shameful state I was in by the time I walked up the 4 floors to the apartment with my suitcase on Tuesday, the exercise that walking around madrid will bring can only do me good.

yes, as soon as I get around to it, I will change the name of the blog back to MAINLY ON THE PLAIN.

The eagle has landed

Harlez-vous Francais?

The challenge is to change one letter in a foreign loanword or phrase and provide a new definition. Here is a list of entries, taken from Canada's Globe and Mail newspaper:

Stout le monde: Is everyone getting fatter these days?
Tour de forcep: a long and difficult birth
Inter alias: among other false names
Smuchas gracias: thanks for the kisses
Chile con carnet: permission to emigrate
Armor vincit omnia: Tanks beat everything
Patter familias: I recognize your footsteps
Coupe d'état: government limo
Tubermensch: Mr. PotatoHead
In vino verbitas: Drunks talk too much
Souse-chef: cooking with alcohol
Squid pro quo - Who ordered the calamari?
Bad lib - Something you regret having improvised
Lad infinitum - Peter Pan
Sine qua neon - Nothing if not flashy
Semper fidelist - long-time Castro supporter

From a similar contest, in New York magazine:

HARLEZ-VOUS FRANCAIS? -- Can you drive a French motorcycle?
EX POST FUCTO -- Lost in the mail
IDIOS AMIGOS -- We're wild and crazy guys!
VENI, VIPI, VICI -- I came, I'm a very important person, I conquered.
COGITO EGGO SUM -- I think; therefore I am a waffle.
RIGOR MORRIS -- The cat is dead.
RESPONDEZ S'IL VOUS PLAID -- Honk if you're Scottish.
QUE SERA SERF -- Life is feudal.
LE ROI EST MORT. JIVE LE ROI -- The king is dead. No kidding.
POSH MORTEM -- Death styles of the rich and famous
PRO BOZO PUBLICO -- Support your local clown.
MONAGE A TROIS -- I am three years old.
FELIX NAVIDAD -- Our cat has a boat.
HASTE CUISINE -- Fast French food
VENI, VIDI, VICE -- I came, I saw, I partied.
QUIP PRO QUO -- A fast retort
ALOHA OY -- Love; greetings; farewell; from such a pain you should never know.
MAZEL TON -- tons of luck
APRES MOE LE DELUGE -- Larry and Curly got wet.
PORTE-KOCHERE -- Sacramental wine
ICH LIEBE RICH -- I'm really crazy about having dough.
FUI GENERIS -- What's mine is mine.
VISA LA FRANCE -- Don't leave your chateau without it.
CA VA SANS DIRT -- And that's not gossip.
MERCI RIEN -- Thanks for nothin'!
AMICUS PURIAE -- Platonic friend
L'ETAT, C'EST MOO -- I'm bossy around here.

Household Guests

While I was in Buenos Aires, Boris and Natasha invited some new friends over to play:









These new friends are still here, hanging out in the kitchen. Natasha is not too pleased about this:

Withdrawal Symptoms

I'm home, where the state of the financial markets almost makes the Argentine economy look stable. Almost, but not quite: even within a seven-week period, it was hard to avoid the conclusion that inflation is pretty rampant in Buenos Aires. Government figures place it at an annual rate of 8 or 9%, but nobody believes these figures; sadly, the statistical profession is held in low regard as a direct corollary, as it is widely held (and probably true) that statisticians in the Central Statistics Office massage the numbers as the politicians dictate. In the taxi to the DHL office, I heard part of a radio program where they reported that 85% of business people surveyed believed the annual inflation rate was over 25%. Which seemed plausible enough, until the radio host changed gears. His next "topic" was a 5-minute diatribe about how a friend of his who had just gotten back from Warsaw swore that the Poles used dogs to make margarine. Which I suppose might be newsworthy, if true.

In typically mature fashion, I haven't opened my September financial statement. Since October's arrives in a few days, why go through the pain twice? If things keep going this way, it may be time for the kitties to start auditioning for cat food commercials to pull their weight. Which, in Boris's case, is a little higher than it was before I left -- I swear he barely moved while I was gone.

The trip back was (relatively) uneventful - breaking the journey in D.C. certainly helped, and Paddy welcomed me back with plenty of delicious home-cooked vegetables. This time I flew with Virgin American for the San Francisco-Washington roundtrip, with the result that I will never again fly United on that route. For that matter, I will do my damnedest to avoid United whenever possible - hostility to passengers now seems to be the norm* (though there are occasional exceptions among their staff, they are few and far between). The genuine warmth of the Virgin American ground and air crews was almost a shock, in comparison.

Warmth was in short supply as I was going through U.S. immigration and customs at Washington Dulles. The increased budget for the Department of Homeland Security to maintain the integrity of the nation's borders has done nothing to alleviate the unique mix of thinly-veiled hostility and bureaucratic intimidation that is the hallmark of most immigration officials. To cut a long story short, first I was chewed out by the immigration guy for not having "machine-readable" documents -- both my green card and passport were too old-fashioned for his liking. He kept waving the green card, in particular, and shouting "this has no expiration date" until I thought he was going to work himself up to a brain aneurysm. Anyway, the upshot is that he put some kind of stamp in my passport which prevents my travelling outside the U.S. again until the "situation" is remedied. Since I was unaware that there even was a "situation" with respect to my travel documents, naturally I'm a bit miffed. But I've already applied for a new passport. Which required me to hand in my old one, so I won't be leaving the U.S. for a while (up to 4 weeks, according to the folks at the Irish consulate here in S.F.)

I was also pulled aside for 'secondary screening' by customs at Dulles. Which was relatively innocuous - the guy just went through my luggage fairly thoroughly, but was civil and mildly apologetic. What was shocking was the unbridled xenophobic racist contempt that his colleagues were unleashing on some arrivals from Somalia who were also being screened at the same time. There is a streak of racism a mile wide alive and well and thriving in the Department of Homeland Security, it would seem. Which somewhat belies the saccharine "Welcome to America" video that loops repeatedly as one waits in line to be processed for entry.

But it's great being home, though I do miss Buenos Aires. In my next post I will try to pick out some of my favorite memories, and to give some travel tips.


*: not to mention assorted nefarious efforts on United's part to eliminate huge chunks of my unused frequent flier miles, on the dubious grounds that they are unused.

Living Statues Contest

A subset of photos from the living statue contest is here.

The entire afternoon's haul may be found on Flickr as well.

The Living Statues Contest was everything a person could hope for, and more.

Coins (redux)

As mentioned in an earlier post, monedas - or more precisely the scarcity thereof - are an ongoing preoccupation, not to say obsession, here in Buenos Aires.

************* Before 2000 ********** After 2000

Small coins .....................15.................................172

Large coins ....................138................................6

Above is the updated (and final - this investigation is now closed) version of the table presented in an earlier post (sorry for the ASCII graphics, Jerome!)

It is clear from the table that the hypothesis suggested by the earlier table, which had zeros on the left-right diagonal, did not pan out entirely. Some large coins were manufactured after 2000; all were one-peso coins, with a manufacture date of 2006 or later. In seven weeks, inspection of my own change, and that of classmates coerced into participation in my little investigation, found not a single 25- or 50-centavo piece manufactured after the year 1997. Similarly, older 5- and 10-centavo pieces are a distinct rarity.

Make of it what you will. When I get home, I will never take my penny jar for granted again.

Speaking of coins, if any readers of this blog could please explain to me exactly what is depicted on the Oklahoma state quarter, I'd greatly appreciate it. Is it a bird? Is it a man? Is it .. WHAT the hell is it?



Still on the topic of coins, here's a little estimation puzzle, taken from the following delightful book*:



Suppose you are on the pavement outside a 100-story building. The challenge is to erect a column of coins (they could be Argentine pesos, but as we know you'd never scrape together enough, so let's say they are U.S. quarters, which are roughly the same size). At your disposal are as many carts of quarters as you need; each cart contains a cubic meter of coins. How many carts should you ask for?

First take a guess, just based on your intuition. Then check your intuition, based on some reasonable approximations. A white-fonted hint is given below, to see it, just drag your mouse over it, while holding the left button down. Solution available on my return to the U.S. But give it a shot - it's kind of fun to figure it out.

Hint: The width of the coins is not a relevant consideration in this problem


*: Adrián Paenza is a former sports journalist, who went back to university to get his Ph.D. in math, and is now professor of mathematics at the University of Buenos Aires. Invited to write a weekly math column for the newspaper**, the first collection of those columns, "Mathematics: are you there?", became a runaway bestseller, as did the two followup volumes. (For instance, Nestor, the doorman in the school building, was a great fan, as was Ciro).

I was amused to note that volume 2 (pictured above) contains the classic "how do you measure out 4 liters, if all you have is a 3-liter and a 5-liter jug?" problem. Amused because the scarcity of coins virtually guarantees that any Buenos Aires resident will be adept in the kind of instinctive mental calculation needed to solve that particular problem. As an example, if I buy something for 9 pesos, and offer the merchant a 20-peso note, it's a virtual certainty that he will ask me if I have a single peso. If I acquiesce, he can then give me a 10-peso and 2-peso note in change, while upping his stock of peso coins by one; if I don't he is forced to give me at least one coin as part of my change, which might just ruin his entire day.

**: Yeah. It's a misplaced modifier. So sue me. You know exactly what the sentence means.

Logistical Issues (II) : at the DHL Office

As we know, this blogger has a definite problem when it comes to books. It's not enough to read them, I have to own them as well. And, as documented in previous posts, Buenos Aires has the potential to be any biblophile's downfall.

So it was that, yesterday morning, I made a trip to the DHL office on Avenida Córdoba to take care of the ritual pre-shipping of the books.* By now I have this routine pretty much down - for instance, my mental estimate of the weight of the package to be shipped was remarkably accurate - I guessed 15 kg, as against an actual weight of 14.6 kg. The charge for such a shipment is too outrageous to be specified here, but this is one specific luxury I allow myself when travelling - the peace of mind is well worth the exorbitant fees. There seems little point in fretting and risking some kind of cardiac event, and the Argentine economy needs my dollars.

Anyway, the inventory for yesterday's shipment was as follows:

49 books
30 CDs
27 decorative refrigerator magnets

If I recall correctly, my shipment from Mexico (also DHL) included 28 books, based on a 4-week stay. From which a tentative estimate emerges, that of a book acquisition rate of one per day. In my defense, I would just like to add that, in the first four months of the year, I believe my total number of books read (it's tallied on goodreads.com somewhere) was 110, which is pretty close to one a day. Of course, between Mexico and Argentina, my total for the year has stalled out somewhere around the 160 mark, something I fully intend to remedy in October.

The package is scheduled to arrive in San Francisco on Wednesday, one day after I get home on Tuesday evening.

It's always such a relief to get the books thing squared away that I was sitting in the DHL office feeling quite pleased with myself. I should know by now that even the slightest temptation to feel smug about any aspect of one's travel is generally a cue for a little life lesson of some kind. Yesterday's lesson arrived in the form of two French cyclists, both in their late 40s, at a guess. They strode in to the DHL office, calf muscles bulging, each with a racing bike, and proceeded to take out screwdrivers and start to dismantle the bikes, to ship them back to France.

Let's just say, gentle readers, that cycling around Argentina, only then to dismantle a racing bike for shipping home via DHL is not something that I am ever going to accomplish in this incarnation. My jaw dropped in frank amazement as I watched them - it obviously wasn't the first time they had done this either - and it hasn't really reattained its normal position since.

To the two unknown French cyclists in the DHL office - I take off my chapeau in respect and awe. Compared to you guys, I'm just a piker when it comes to travel.

*: An earlier reconnaissance mission to the official Argentine CORREO office proved fruitless and irritating; the privatization of the postal service during the YETA years obviously has had little effect on the demeanor of its employees, who treated me to a song-and-dance routine to the effect that packages up to 500 grams had to be handed in at one type of office, from 500 grams to 5 kilos at a different kind, and packages from 10 kilos upwards could only be received at the Retiro office, which had very restricted hours, and no they couldn't look up the rates for me, despite having a computer terminal right there, and have a nice day, and - in response to my remark that the only thing that was obvious here was that they had not the slightest interest in helping me and what kind of hijo de puta would sit at his terminal and deny the ability to look something up on the web and that this was the kind of behavior more fitting to a banana republic - that I hadn't understood correctly, that this was a post office, not somewhere from which one could send parcels, that I obviously didn't understand the meaning of the word CORREO, after which it is best to draw a veil over the conversation because this is a family blog, though I will note that my parting volley of abuse, begun in Spanish and continued in English, drew rousing applause from the other customers, and I'd better stop before this aside degenerates into a kind of ungrammatical tribute to DFW.

Logistical Issues (I)

The problem: that carton doesn't look particularly sturdy, and a kilogram of dulce de leche has the potential to wreak a lot of havoc, luggage-wise.



A potential solution, with the added attraction that the solution itself may double as an attractive gift option. But will my wild guess in "El Gato Negro" (an officially designated "historical café") that the lata (tin) will be big enough pan out?



Indeed it does! With room to spare. Oh frabjous day!! A little padding with socks and underwear and VAMONOS!



¡¡ PROBLEM SOLVED !!
(I hope Anna likes her puddy-tat tin)

Recuerdos (and a Milestone)

Here are some of the souvenirs I got at school today (my last day):



A card with text from the blind master himself



Signed by all the teachers and staff



Ammunition for a future episode of Operation Baked Goods



A kilogram of dulce de leche (with the accompanying logistical challenge)



There were some certificates having to do with language competence as well



The last one commends my "exceptional" participation in class. (Guess that presentation on why the dinosaurs went extinct really paid off).

It was a most extraordinary seven weeks. I can't remember when I've been as happy. My thanks go out to everyone at COINED for making me feel as at home as I did. Most of all to Ciro and to Carolina, two of the sweetest, most charming, extraordinarily capable teachers it's ever been my pleasure to study with.





The plain people of Ireland: Them biscuits look delicious. Aren't you going to open them to celebrate?
The management: They do indeed look delicious - it was a very thoughtful gift. But celebrate what, pray tell.
The plain people of Ireland: Yerra, go on, don't pretend you're not counting - this is your 400th post on this blog.
The management: Why, so it is! Champagne and alfajores all round!

Rancor in the Classroom

Over the past year and a half I've racked up close to a thousand classroom-hours of Spanish instruction. There are signs that it has paid off - for instance, when I was souvenir shopping today, the lady in the poster store kept rattling on about how Nadal would be coming to visit Buenos Aires in November. It was only when she mentioned that I could have artwork shipped to Spain that the penny dropped - she thought I was a Spanish tourist.

Which was gratifying, but that's not what this post is about. The remarkable thing is that, in all those hours in the classroom, I can think of only three occasions where the discussion degenerated into total meltdown - once in Spain, once in Mexico, and once here in Buenos Aires. When one thinks about this, it is a testament to the extraordinary professionalism of the teachers I've had along the way. All have been able to steer the conversational boat with skill and dedication, managing - with very few exceptions - to steer clear of the rocks of mutual antagonism and miscommunication that lurk whenever you get a group of strangers from different backgrounds, and of different ages, nationalities and social strata together and launch a conversation.

The Spanish disaster was so profoundly horrible I don't even like to think about it. What was remarkable was that it involved three students all of whom lived in the U.S. - myself, an amazing 22-year old from New York, Aaron (who was pre-med, due to start at Yale Medical School last fall, an absolute mensch, brilliant, and possibly my favorite classmate ever), and this ridiculous caricature of a woman whose name I don't even want to mention, but who had just graduated from law school in San Francisco. The vile lawyer-woman launched into this remarkably vicious attack on the medical profession, doctors in general, med students in particular, and things got remarkably ugly remarkably fast. The teacher was unable to stop things and ended up looking on, white-faced.

The meltdown in Guanajuato was provoked by the teacher's unfortunate choice of reading materials, specifically a bunch of hagiographic magazine articles about the phony Nobel Peace Laureate, Rigoberta Menchu. Those of us who were aware that this woman had faked her entire autobiography mentioned this fact, only to be met by stonefaced disbelief by the teacher and those students unaware of the controversy. Escalating google searches and countersearches, combined with stubbornness on both sides until - thankfully - class ended for the day.

The breakdown here in Buenos Aires occurred in one of the afternoon classes during my very first week. We were reading one of Borges's less interesting stories, "Emma Zunz". The basic plot is that the protagonist, Emma, wants to get revenge on the man she believes responsible for her father's death, so she plans to kill him in a manner that suggests that he first raped her and that she therefore acted in self-defense. (So she goes down to the docks first and offers herself up to the first sailor who comes along, making sure he uses her brutally etc etc - I told you it wasn't very interesting).

Before going down to the docks to be brutally manhandled, she meets her friends from work to go to the public swimming pool for a Saturday morning frolic. Etc etc. Daniel, the teacher, made a point of drawing our attention to this plot detail, asking us why. You figure the answer is so that her friends will notice her unblemished unbruised body in her bathing suit - nothing more. No, according to Daniel, it was to establish her virginity.

"Say what now?!", I hear you ask. Well, apparently, back in the early 1900's, for a woman to use a public swimming pool in Buenos Aires, it was a requirement that she undergo a comprehensive exam by a doctor, including certain gynecological details. Urban and I, the only two Europeans in the class, guffawed at this quaint Victorian custom. Only to be met by offended, uncomprehending reactions from Daniel and Camila, the Brazilian student. Because, apparently, even today - in the early 2000's, it is STILL a requirement for anyone using a public swimming pool in Argentina or Brazil to undergo a physical examination, with particular attention paid, to use a word designed to confound the internet censors, to the pudenda. To be clear, if you're female, a full gynecological exam.

Sputtering disbelief from myself and Urban, followed by a certain amount of questioning to ascertain the purpose, and putative utility, of such an exam. I'll be the first to admit that the tone of the questioning was - let's say - less than respectful. Which, of course, added to the international misunderstanding, because Daniel and Camila felt - not without reason - that we were mocking Latin American public health practices. Which in this case, they doggedly maintained, were incontrovertible evidence of more rigorous public health standards than those prevalent in the U.S. and Europe.

That class ended in a kind of huffy stalemate. Camila obviously hated my guts for the rest of her time in the school, on one occasion actually CROSSING THE STREET in order not to have to acknowledge my existence. Which, personally, I thought was taking things a little too seriously.

I should emphasize that the notable thing here is the relative infrequency of these various breakdowns in communication. I've been lucky to have had a bunch of excellent teachers; here in Buenos Aires, they are a truly exceptional group.

And, no, I don't know the Spanish word for "cooties".

Gastronomic Advice

Should you find yourself in a Buenos Aires restaurant, suffering from meat exhaustion, you may be tempted by menu entries such as "Ensalada César", "Caezer Salad", "Kaisersallat" (sic!).

DO NOT YIELD TO THIS TEMPTATION. Nothing good will come of it, I can assure you. No matter how many allowances you are willing to make, disappointment and disillusionment are the only possible outcomes. Trust me on this. There are certain expectations that the term "Caesar Salad" generates, unavoidably. NONE OF THESE WILL BE MET.

The exact manner of your disappointment will, of course, depend on the establishment. But, based on a sample size of three, I am willing to bet (apostar) that the following elements will be involved:

1. A complete absence of anything resembling Romaine lettuce.
   
2. The apparently prevalent local belief that the terms "Caesar salad dressing" and "the Argentine equivalent of Miracle Whip" are interchangeable.
   
3. The presence of some kind of soggy item, nominally belonging to the bread group, evidently meant to be a crouton, but not actually recognizable as such.
   
4. An inordinately high sog-factor, generally, resulting from some kind of diabolical synergy among the pond-greenery, canned mushrooms, brine-soaked croutons and Miracle Whip.
   
5. No anchovies.
   
6. Canned chicken parts.
   

Depending on your moral strength of character, the disillusionment induced by your faux C-S experience may or may not lead to a regrettable frenzy of compensatory Toblerone-gorging (availability of Toblerone is a factor here as well, obviously). You may end up just snarling at your travel companion(s) or engaging in acts of petty urban vandalism. But either way, it won't be pretty.

Maybe you'd like a nice cut of meat from the parrilla instead?

Puddy-tats of the Botanical Garden

On Saturday afternoon I went to the Botanical Garden in Palermo. The foliage was a bit ratty, and it would be charitable to draw a veil over the entire disastrous choral "concert" in the little pavilion. But there were lots of puddy-tats - many of them looking remarkably well-fed. You can see them here -

Puddy-tats of the Botanical Garden

Peach MALBA

Today was a peach of a day. Bright and sunny, with the notable feature that, for the very first time since arriving here in Buenos Aires I slept like a log during the night, and woke up feeling completely relaxed and refreshed. It makes a difference, I tell you.

In the morning, from 9 to 11, I had my written exam; then, from 1:30 to 2:00 my oral test. None of it really matters, and I still don't know how I did on the written part (though it seemed pretty easy). But I was pleased with the oral part. The format was that I had to make a brief (10-15 minute) presentation to Ciro on a topic I had prepared beforehand ("el tigre céltico"), while a second teacher sat in the background, grading the presentation and making note of any errors. It was a nice ego-boost when, at the end, she said she had stopped taking notes at about the 5-minute mark because it was obvious I wasn't going to make any (serious) mistakes.

During the afternoon's class we went on an excursion to MALBA (Museum of Latino-American Art of Buenos Aires). MALBA is a private, and relatively new, museum, home to the personal collection of a rich businessman called Constantini*. According to their mission statement:

Our mission at Malba – Fundación Costantini / Museo de Arte Latinoamericano de Buenos Aires- is to collect, conserve, study and disseminate Latin American art, dating from the early 20th Century to the present day.

Costing a relatively stiff 15 pesos on other days of the week, it is FREE on Wednesdays. Well worth a visit.

*The Buenos Aires equivalent to the Thyssen in Madrid, though nowhere near as large as the Thyssen. The whole place reeked of money and good taste.

Axolotl

This little guy is called an axolotl.

If he doesn't make you grin like a Cheshire cat,

I don't know what'll.

The man in the labyrinth

So, I've been reading Borges. An occupational hazard here in Buenos Aires. The interesting thing is that, the more I read, the better I like him. Before coming here, all I had read were his "Fictions", in translation. Not a bad introduction, but they definitely work better in Spanish.

Here in Buenos Aires, I've also tackled some of his poetry (e.g. the poems in "El oro de los tigres", pictured above), as well of some of his more accessible prose ("El Aleph", "Los conjurados").

It would be foolish to try to sum Borges up in a few tidy sentences, so I'm not about to try. A few observations, nonetheless.

Probably the most immediately striking feature of his work is the man's enormous erudition. At times you get the impression that here is a man who has read every book ever written. Here is the first line of one of his poems ("Espadas", that is, "Swords"):

Gram, Durendal, Joyeuse, Excalibur.

It takes a certain amount of cojones to launch a poem that way. It indicates an author who either assumes that the reader will get the references in question, or someone who doesn't care about the reader who doesn't.

Another obvious feature is the obsession with patterns, puzzles, mazes, the border of the finite and infinite. The library, the labyrinth, the infinitude of combinatorial possibilities available to the writer, the vicissitudes of chance -- these are themes that crop up again and again.

For me, it is this characteristic cerebral quality of Borges's work that ultimately prevents him from being one of the world's all-time great writers. Because I think it comes at a price. It is impossible to escape the impression that this is a writer who regards his characters as pieces to be moved around the chessboard of his (great) imagination, but never really as flesh-and-blood human beings. Borges is always on the outside looking in, or looking down from the vast Olympian heights of his tremendous erudition, but where's the heart? If it's love poetry you want, you're going to reach for Neruda, maybe. But never Borges.

Here in Argentina, a commonly expressed resentment is that Borges, despite living through the country's political turmoil of the 20th century, never addressed it directly in his literature, preferring to stay above, or at least out of, the fray. While this may be true, it is, I think, irrelevant when it comes to judging his work.

I'm definitely hooked. And I'll probably look back on this post at some later point and cringe with embarrassment. So be it.

¡¡¡ PRIMAVERA !!!

Thpring is thprung.
The grass is ris'.
I wonder where the flowers is.

The boyd is on the wing.
How absoyd!
The wing is on the boyd.

Deathtrap Sidewalks of Buenos Aires

Not that anyone asked for photographic documentation or anything, but my readers deserve to know the truth:

las veredas más peligrosas del mundo

Tributes to David Foster Wallace

My good friend Ginnie, over at the goodreads site, has put together a list of links of tributes to David Foster Wallace. In her words:

McSweeney's has a terrific page of memories and tributes from fellow writers and former students of Wallace's from Pomona College
McSweeneys

Here is Time magazine.
Time

Here is the Guardian UK.
guardian

Here is DFW's delightful 2006 New York Times piece on Roger Federer,
federer

and also "Host," his fantastic 2005 piece about right-wing hate radio, from the Atlantic.
host

Here is Wallace interviewed on Charlie Rose from about ten years ago.
rose interview

And here is a huge obit roundup on the DFW fan site, Howling Fantods.
obits

DFW's 2005 commencement address at Ohio's Kenyon College is being re-posted everywhere, and is just terrifically worthy of your time, if you're so inclined.
commencement address

Finally, Harper's magazine has graciously posted every DFW piece they ever ran, in PDF, including the famed "Shipping Out."
Harper's

Reading it again now, the reality seems even truer, even more heartbreaking, than ever. The world of words just won't be the same without him.

Breakfast in Buenos Aires

All for a lousy three bucks. And that coffee cup is enormous!

Animals of the Christian Theme Park

For some unfathomable reason, the charming photo set, Animals of the Christian Theme Park , has received only a single viewing thus far. These poor, neglected, hideously ugly, papier-mâché critters need attention.

Won't you please pay them a visit?

Palabras nuevas

conejillo de Indias : a guinea pig (literally, "little rabbit of the Indies"; compare with the German "Meerschweinchen", or "little pig of the sea"). All of these terms seem inaccurate to some degree, for an animal that is neither pig nor rabbit, nor particularly pelagic, Indian nor from Guinea.

choripan : a hot dog in a bun (derived from chorizo and pan)
pancho : a hot dog in a bun (also derived from pan and chorizo)

gauchesco : the language of the gauchos (see later entry on Martín Fierro).

cafisho : Lunfardo for "pimp"
lobisón : a werewolf, or the Argentine version thereof (metamorphoses into a cross between a pig and a wild dog, as there are no wolves in Argentina); the transformation occurs every Friday at midnight, independently of the phase of the moon. Favorite diet is "excrementos" of every type, spiced up occasionally with the flesh of an unbaptized infant. As noted previously, being a lobisón is the fate of any seventh consecutive male child*. Physically, the untransformed lobisón is thin, subject to digestive ailments, with a propensity for staying in bed on Saturdays. Not terribly surprising, given his nocturnal activities on Fridays.

*For extra credit: Juan and Begoña are a Patagonian couple with five strapping sons (and no daughters). Given that they are devout practising Catholics and have two further children, what is the probability that their seventh child is a lobisón?

Erratum

Due to some faulty translation work, yesterday's post conveyed the erroneous impression that the Argentine owl, Buo Magellanicus, was capable of magnetizing cats and other domestic animals. More careful research suggests that the Thpanish word "magnetizar" actually means "to hypnotize". Thus the phenomenon in question should more correctly be classified as a form of avian hypnotism. While it could be argued that a type of animal magnetism is involved, it is not the case that affected cats can be used as refrigerator magnets, or as a good luck measure in card games, as yesterday's post implied, also erroneously.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this regrettable error. Please rest assured that the faulty translator will be severely castigated.

The management.

The Plain People of Ireland: Sinéad! Put down that cat! Turns out yer man has it wrong again.
(fade to the sound of background feline shrieking...)
The Management: sigh...

Oenological Report

When I saw this in the supermarket, I had to buy it. Not just your average supermarket plonk either - it set me back a full 32 pesos.

A full report will follow in due course.

Don David.

Today's Haul

At lunchtime today, I went all out and splurged at the bookstore, spending a full 100 pesos, or 33 US dollars. As you can imagine, this netted me a pretty good haul, pictured below:



The jewel in the crown of this collection was undoubtedly the delightful "Supersticiones y Leyendas en la Argentina", about which I will have much more to say in a future post.



For now, let me just finish with a couple of questions.

Did you know

• that the owl Buo magellanicus has the ability to magnetize cats and other domestic animals?
  
• that the black crow is an augur of rain and should never be shot, because the rifle will stay damp for ever after?
  
• that rubbing your thumbs with a magnet brings good luck at cards? (presumably if you don't have a magnet to hand you might try rubbing your thumbs with a cat or other domestic animal that has been magnetized by an owl)
  
• that the seventh of seven consecutive sons is doomed to be a lobisón, or werewolf? On the distaff side, the seventh consecutive daughter would, of course, be a witch.
  
• that if the idiot girl next to me in the internet cafe doesn't quit her vacuous high-pitched giggling, I may have to kill her?