Vowel

 If you think of the word "said," it is more or less that Spanish word "sed."  What we call the short e as in "bed" is the vowel of "ved."  What we don't want is the dipthong of "say."  In English, the short e tends to followed by a consonant. 

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Small differences

 Ensayo in Spanish doesn't carry the connotation of brevity. There are essays of 300 pages. 

Antología is used for selected poems by a single author, not merely for anthologies of several poets. 

Narrativa is use to mean prose fiction, what in English we would merely call fiction. Ficción is used much less, though the word does exist, as in the title of Borges's Ficciones. Definition 2 of narrativa is "Género literario constituido por la novela, la novela corta y el cuento."

Green beans

Farmers market green beans:

Green beans (handful)

1 smallish tomato 

Garlic (1 clove)

Thai Basil (enough!)

Olive oil (use your judgment)

1 small hot pepper (but it wasn't very hot...)

Salt & pepper (to taste)

Splash of red wine (optional)

I boiled the beans for a while, drained, then sautéed everything in olive oil.  Ate with leftover sausage and potato from previous night.  Every recipe, however minimalist in intention, ends up having 8 or 9 ingredients. 

Job in my field

 Job in my field at U I got my PhD from. Assistant Prof, but with salary advertised at more than I make now as full, with five books published and 36 years of experience, etc... Sure, the cost of living is astronomical there, but still, it would be nice to make six figures before I retire.  

The new theory

 The new theory of the duende is that Lorca was tongue in cheek when he said that everywhere in Spain people talked about flamenco "having" duende.  The word  itself existed before, but Lorca himself invented this new flamenco meaning / usage of the term.  

Evidence for this is that there is no usage attested before Lorca's own lecture. I just bought a book, a new translation of the lecture, by Maurer, with notes by José Javier León, who came up with this new research.  

It is very strange, to be sure. Lorca invented something, that was not true when he spoke, but became true later on through his own influence. We've all had this backward. The other explanation would be that this usage was new in Lorca's time, that he picked up on it and popularized it. We can't prove that nobody said "eso tiene duende" before Lorca gave his lecture. We do know, though, that nobody wrote down this phrase before Lorca.  

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This got me thinking, that because something is strange does not mean we shouldn't believe it. In other words, the truth does not care about the structure of our thinking.  The "truth is stranger than fiction" trope exists for a reason.  A novelist has to invent something plausible, or verisimilar, something that corresponds with our ideas about how things are. But the truth itself has no obligation to be verisimilar. 

It reminds me of the idea that "facts have a liberal bias." Well, no they don't.  Any ideology will generate cognitive dissonance. It is just easier to see when it is not your ideology.   

I was watching a documentary on scientology. Of course, the theology of this is absurd. But all theology is absurd from the perspective of anyone who doesn't subscribe to that particular theology.  Credo quia absurdum est, I think is the relevant dictum.  

 

sour grapes

 I used to wonder why the fox couldn't reach the grapes, which are usually low to the ground.  In Argentina recently I realized that vines can be very far off the ground indeed.  

Argentina

 Argentina is the country I have spent the most number of weeks (excluding US and Spain!). A total of about 3 months in three separate years. I don't know what #4 is, maybe Italy.  Anyway, I found this quote in a book on the contemporary political situation.

Esto sí es algo distintivo del peronismo y del radicalismo en sus orígenes. Es la construcción de una narrativa de superioridad moral. Cualquier narrativa de superioridad moral es excluyente, porque te permite ser parte del grupo que se autopercibe como moralmente superior mientras estés de acuerdo con ello y te excluye como moralmente inferior en la medida en que seas crítico. El peronismo lo tuvo en sus orígenes, y el kirchnerismo lo ha recuperado: eso le da mucha fuerza a una narrativa poco pluralista, que implica que todos los demás grupos están en un error.

Di Marco, Laura. Juicio al peronismo (Spanish Edition) (p. 312). SUDAMERICANA. Kindle Edition. 

This is quoted from Aníbal Pérez-Liñán. What kills discussion faster than the idea that a question makes you a bad person by definition?