The exhibition, called “A Place of Memory” and running through March 10, shows how, right from the beginning, the Prado navigated the often choppy waters of Spanish politics, as the country went from being an imperial power to a nation divided by civil war, and then through dictatorship to the democracy it is today.
(c) 2019 JMN.
According to many musicians, in order to have the best sound possible, an acoustic guitar has to be made from the “right” type of wood. Unfortunately, such wood often comes from endangered, unsustainably-harvested trees. A new study, however, suggests that wood type makes essentially no difference.
— Read on newatlas.com/guitar-wood-types/58139/
www.artorbiter.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/Pat-Steir-Facebook.jpg
“It was unimaginable to everyone around me that a small girl — not even a big strapping girl — could live a life as an artist and stay alive and committed,” Ms. Steir said. Her father had gone to art school but, with four children to support, couldn’t achieve his dream of being an artist. He encouraged his daughter to be a poet because he thought she would make more money.
(Hilarie M. Sheets, “Pat Steir Gets Discovered, Again,” NYTimes, 1-18-19)
(c) 2019 JMN.
The lesson here is really to question, what is the genuine source of this content and how is it being frames [sic]. And then, how is that framing elevated by the the news media that you’re looking through?” said Louis Matsakis, who writes about cyber security and online culture for Wired.
(CBS News, “Twitter nixes account that helped to spread viral confrontation video,” 1-23-19)
(c) 2019 JMN.
… In the actual history of the human race “traditional masculinity” as a single coherent category simply does not exist.
To pluck only Western examples, there is no single “traditional” model that can encompass strong, silent types and romantic poets, chivalric knights and laconic cowboys, the sorrowing Young Werther and the stiffened upper lip, the machismo of the Mediterranean and the mysticism of the Celts, Jimmy Stewart and Cary Grant and John Wayne.
(Ross Douthat, “In Search of Non-Toxic Manhood,” NYTimes, 1-19-19)
(c) 2019 JMN.
Another great strength of Chéri is its domestic accuracy, especially about the shifting sands between two people alone in a room, the vanity and careless cruelty, the weird dance between love and clarity – “You never laugh except unkindly – at people,” Léa tells Chéri, “and that makes you ugly”. There is also the way in which people behave, so often counterintuitively and according to urges they did not suspect they possessed.
(Aida Edemariam, “Wild, controversial and free: Colette, a life too big for film,” The Guardian, 1-7-19)
(c) 2019 JMN.
In other words, drawing out the things we want to remember can be a powerful technique to combat our natural declines in memory, better even than repeatedly writing them down or listing characteristics and descriptors.
(Tim Herrera, “A Simple Way to Better Remember Things: Draw a Picture,” NYTimes, 1-6-19)
(c) 2019 JMN.
My Spanish grandson, a computer science student, reads novels in English by authors such as Ken Follett to sharpen his skills in that language. He wrestles with colloquialisms and slang expressions that he encounters. The one he mentioned specifically was “It’s not my cup of tea.” He asked me recently to provide him a random list of such expressions off the top of my head for him to ponder and possibly recognize should he encounter them. I’ve free-associated thus far the following hodgepodge for him. (Nagging question: Is all slang this weighted toward the derogatory and snide? Or is it me?)
-a He’s… She’s… You’re… They’re…
-b I… You… He… She… They…
-c It’s…
Not my cup of tea.
Pulling my leg.
Took me for a ride.
Let sleeping dogs lie.
Make hay while the sun shines.
Lie with dogs, rise with fleas.
On it like a duck on a junebug.
Not a bowl of cherries.
Not all hats and horns.
Has a burr in his blanket.
Has a bee in her bonnet.
Old as the hills.
Wild and woolly.
High on the hog.
In high cotton.
High as a kite.
Free as a breeze.
There’s a new bull in the pasture.
All hat and no ranch.
Too far over his skis.
Under the weather.
Ugly as a mud fence.
Open a can of whup-up on him.
Long in the tooth.
Living on borrowed time.
Speaks with a forked tongue.
Over the moon.
Pencil-neck geek.
Straight arrow.
In over his head.
The sky’s the limit.
Butter my butt and call me a biscuit!
His cheese done slid right off his cracker.
Crazy as a loon.
Up a creek without a paddle.
Oil field trash and proud.
Busy as a bee.
Just got skunked.
One brick shy of a load.
Not playing with a full deck.
Not rowing with both oars.
A loose cannon.
(Cc) 2019 JMN.
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In the film, set in Mexico City in the 1970s, the actors speak Mexican Spanish and the indigenous Mixtec language. For that Spanish, Netflix added subtitles in Castilian, Spain’s main dialect, for the release in that country. On Wednesday, Netflix removed those Castilian subtitles after Cuarón told El País, a Spanish newspaper, that they were “parochial, ignorant and offensive to Spaniards themselves.”
…
“It’s like if you have an American film showing in the U.K. and the character says he’s going to the washroom, but the subtitles say he’s going to the loo,” [Jordi] Soler [Mexican author living in Barcelona] said in a telephone interview. “It’s ridiculous. They’re treating the people of Spain like they’re idiots.”
(Alex Marshall, “Mama to Madre? ‘Roma’ Subtitles in Spain Anger Alfonso Cuaron,” NYTimes, 1-12-19)
(c) 2019 JMN.
EthicalDative 
Fixing To
[Drawing by Tom Jones]
I’m fixing to get back into the swing of things blogwise. Since November I’ve been immersed in a Mediterranean voyage of discovery and recovery in the family nature of things.
“Fixing to” (the “g” is silent) is a Texas colloquialism meaning “in the throes of preparation for doing” or “gripped by anticipation of pending effort to accomplish” or “about to undertake” something. You hear it in expressions such as “I’m fixin’ to cook supper.” It’s like saying, “I haven’t started yet, but heading for the kitchen is on my mind.”
Kind visitors to Ethical Dative whom I’ve neglected: Kindly abide my lapse. I’m fixin’ to catch up with some of what I’ve missed of your work.
(c) 2019 JMN.