My encounter with Ted Kennedy

When I heard of his death on Wednesday morning, I remembered that I really met Senator Edward M. Kennedy (1932-2009) once, i.e. I saw him “live“.
It was in the fall of 1995 when I studied American Foreign Policy and American Politics at American University in Washington, D.C. Part of the studies was a semester-long internship at some typical “Beltway institution.“ Following the advice of a college professor from Texas whom I knew and who at that time worked for the State Department in D.C., I did not end up in the Senate or with some lobbyists but at the offices of NBC News’ “Meet the Press,“ at that time present by Tim Russert. During the intership days I had to cut out a lot of stories from newspapers from all over the US that had previously been scrutinized and marked by the producers of the show. Another task was to register incoming calls from viewers. And photocopying, of course. Not too exciting all in all you might think.
The real perk was to be able to be present before and while the show was on air on Sunday mornings. It meant showing up at around 7 a.m. at the studio in case there were some last-minute photocopies to be made, etc., and to meet the guests at the door, and show them to the make-up room and the lounge. This way I met, among others, Newt Gingrich, Steve Forbes, Bob Woodward, Bob Dole, the Reverend Jesse Jackson (“Good morning, brother!“), Al Gore, and Ted Kennedy.
Though I don’t remember having exchanged any words with him or shaken his hand, I remember his spectacular, young second (?) wife and his daughter from a previous marriage and her family who accompanied the then sprightly 63-year-old with the typical Kennedyesque full shock of hair. The encounter wiht his daughter was slightly embarassing as she asked me: “Could we have a peek?“ (at the lounge where her father and Bob Dole were waiting for their appearance at the 48th anniversary show) and I understood: “Could we have a pee?,“ and sent them to the bathroom. After she had been to the bathroom door she didn’t make a fuss but repeated her request, and that was it, I thought.
The next morning, when I was on my way to the intership, the NBC studios were near the AU campuses so that I could walk there, I saw her in a car (maybe a light blue Saab) waiting at a red traffic light while I was crossing the road in front of her – and she greeted me!
I am not sure if by a honk or just waving her hand, but I really appreciated the gesture (and probably fell in love with her for a while).
So, this is in reality more a memory of Ted’s daughter than of the patriarch himself but for me a cherished one. And the only serious jobs I had after university both dealt with John F. Kennedy, one of Ted’s older brothers, and the Kennedy family. That’s why this American dynasty is special to me and why I mourn the recent deaths of Eunice Kennedy Shriver, founder of Special Olympics, and of Edward M. Kennedy.

(Due to enormous stress before an important exam, this will be the last entry for a while. This blogger will miss the therapeutical effects of blogging.)

A visit to the employment office

After an absence of about two years, yesterday I finally went to the employment office again as I had heard about a job offer of a public entity that "administers" a nearby mountain range and I wanted to know more about the offer.
The people attending those looking for jobs were more relaxed and friendlier than I remembered them though their workload has increased a lot recently. There was a long line of people waiting but about half of them only had to show up to affirm that they were still looking for a job; otherwise they lose their benefits. Quite a lot of them looked unemployable to my prejudiced eyes.
Then there was a woman who was astonished when she learned that as long as she is on benefits she cannot leave the country for more than 14 days.
Another came to complain either about her low wage or about the little she gets in unemployment benefits as she allegedly has to care for her grandchild, too, I could not hear her; but I heard the staff's response who explained to her that about 80% of the population, even people with university degrees, live on 1,100 EUR or less - working full time.
And I had thought people came to the employment office to enquire about jobs...
Finally it was my turn and I learned that they had not got all the information about the job offer I was interested in yet. They renewed my status as "unemployed AND looking for a job" and told me I had to return another day if I wanted to know more.
Not a really successful visit for me - but very interesting as to watching a piece of the social situation of this country.

Things I miss from Germany

During a recent visit of my parents' in Germany I realized again that there are a few things that I miss dearly - it is not the German weather, of course.
As all expatriates I miss the variety of breads but I find this tolerable. Other things I find more difficult to bear.
I had the chance to watch the evening news on public television and was really amazed: there were no commercial breaks in between, and sports news and the weather forecast did not take up nearly half of the time (as they do here). And there was more talk about global events and developments than about local affairs (a weakness of the admittedly regional TV3 - the "national" Catalan TV station). [But there are no fees for watching TV here.]
Also, as far as I am aware of the Spanish and Catalan press, there are no publications like "Die Zeit" or "Der Spiegel" here. I can find them on the web, but it is not the same reading from a screen or sitting somewhere comfortably with a printed paper in hand - 3G internet access is still quite expensive...
And then I realized why people are so fascinated by the German Autobahn. There are highways here, too, but they are all toll-roads, the lanes are narrower than those in Germany, and there is no extra side lane in case your car breaks down, etc. All this makes driving in Germany a lot more pleasurable than driving here.[Though car taxes are a lot lower here than in Germany.]
Another thing that I find very disturbing (though I once said I wanted to be positive on this blog) is that here public life virtually shuts down for summer vacation in August. As everybody wants - or does not have a choice but - to have their summer vacation in July and/or August suddenly the mail delivery becomes slower, and certain services are not available until September. All the TV stations put their regular programs on hold, emit even more commercials, and repeat old movies, their own series and other cheap productions from the last 30 years.[A welcome exception from this summer "hibernation": my local public library stays open five days a week, though, which I find more important than the changes to the TV programs.]

Books for pedestrians, and some thoughts on bicyles

Looking through old editions of The Economist, I found interesting book reviews that I want to remind myself of in the future. One book is called The Lost Art of Walking: The History, Science, Philosophy, and Literature of Pedestrianism (2008) by Geoff Nicholson, another one is What I talk About When I Talk About Running (2008) by Haruki Murakami, currently one of my favorite authors.
Due to a "weak lung" I am not a great runner but find the topic fascinating.
As to the footwear, I saw an article with nice models, some of them even ecological, on the web of Intelligent Life, the lifestyle edition of the above mentioned weekly, "The skeptical shopper examines trainers for men". The link is http://www.moreintelligentlife.com/content/intelligent-life/heel

I used to go around a lot by bicycle but in our hilly region that is a very strenous pasttime. In an article on Giant Manufacturing of Taiwan I found an interesting bit of information that I fully believe: "Each market has its own idiosyncracies. Europeans mainly use bikes for commuting, but have the odd habit of ignoring models made explicitly for that purpose in favour of sleekier, faster models which are then expensively modified." ("On your bike," The Economist, September 20th 2008, p. 67)
In Barcelona one can observe an astonishing number of people going around on stylish Brompton folding bicycles; in Germany their simplest model costs around 875,- EUR. (I tried to copy a picture from their website but I did not succeed.)

The Forum neighbourhood in Barcelona

If you really want to see one of the dreariest neighbourhoods of Barcelona, go to the area where in 2004 they held the "Forum of Cultures". It is still being "rehabilitated" but is about as charming as Alexanderplatz in Berlin before the fall of the Berlin Wall. Whereever you look there are new skyscrapers: hotels, office and apartment buildings. And hardly any people. But that is fully understandable as the streets there are made for cars, very broad and very long - and fully exposed to the sun. The Diagonal Mar shopping centre offers the full range of Spanish and international chain boutiques and fast-food outlets and might be worth a visit if you really need a specific item. And on the coast you can find a huge photovoltaic shield. But as to the charm and vibrance of Barcelona, do not look for it here.
By the way, the route of the Tour de France stage between Girona and Barcelona yesterday did not pass here and today's with the destination Andorra will not either.

Village life (II)

Summer starts with Saint John's eve (June 23). A group of people goes to a neighboring village to get the flame from Canigó mountain (some myth about the Catalan countries). With that flame a bonfire is set on fire in the village and people light firecrackers to make a lot of noise. At around 10 p.m., those who bought a ticket congregate in the event hall to have dinner together: bread with ham or cheese or some pizza-like cake with tuna, spinach or a local sausage, accompanied by local wine. For dessert a typical cream cake with multicolored fruit and coffee (with a shot of brandy if you like). And then there will be a band playing music for the ball.
On Saint John's day itself (June 24) the local swimming pool opens at noon to inaugurate the summer season that lasts until September 11. There is a swimmer's pool and a shallow, small one for kids. If you like a quiet swim you have to come between three and five in the afternoon when the locals have their siesta. At around five, people start coming to the pool; more or less always the same who like to spread their towels at exactly the same spot and mingle with the same people every day. At lot of the regulars are vacationers who have second homes in the village and come here only during some weeks of the summer.
There is a snack bar and a small playground with very old equipment that does not look like fulfilling actual safety standards.
There are rumors about a general makeover of the main pool next year.

Exercises in translation (I)

Exercises in translation (I)

Unauthorized translation of an op-ed piece by Almudena Grandes that appeared in Spanish in El País Semanal (June 7, 2009):

A GRAIN OF WHEAT

Newly-made books have an agreeable smell, like spring. Spring smells like new books; this undescribable fragrance for which there are neither adjectives nor possible synonyms, the smell that emit brand-new plastified covers, the intactness of the adolescent spines, still smooth, without a wrinkle. Old books, those that put on a tenacious, yellowish patina, smell equally agreeable but their aroma is different. Read books smell like other people’s lives, mysterious lives led by unknown others, men with rough skin, women with polished nails, who held them in their hands when they were new and smelled like spring, when they still emitted the perfume of newly-made books, paper, ink, and love. Above all, love.
Love inspired by books is a complex passion, as difficult to explain as life – that is nourished by them and of which they feed. Love that summons an author and a reader around an excellent piece of design; this so simple and so perfect object, so cheap, so versatile, so easy to use and so often to reuse, light, small, easily portable and rigorously docile to its owner’s will, because it works without batteries or outlets, because it does not freeze nor does it need updates, because – apart from some primary education – it does not need any special knowledge, and it can be used as well underneath the earth as at an altitude of 9.000 feet (sic!) – how do people who do not read bear transoceanic flights? – it’s one of these loves that change anybody’s life. For this reason it is justified that spring loves books and that books fall in love with spring.

Writing a book means creating a deserted island and desiring passionately a shipwreck. Every book that is published is a new point, a black speck, round and tiny, in the neverending blue of knowledge, of human thinking. Every author has created it with its beaches and volcanoes, its coves and its dangers, its jungles, its deserts. And he or she has seen to it that it be habitable, has filled its seas with fish and its woods with wildlife, has hid under its strategic rocks springs of drinking water, has fertilized conscientiously its plains for the sowing of fruit and coconut trees, and has lifted itself to the height of God, even though he or she has needed many more than six days to create all this and to check that it is good.
After that, irremediably human again, they have kept their findgers crossed and desired with all of their strength that a ship might sink near its shores, that at least one male or female survivor let themselves save by the waves to then regain conscience lying in the sand. From this point on all the power is with the shipwrecked. On his or her will depends if this island gives up being deserted, grows, expands, consolidates as a fertile and mighty continent; or if this black speck, hazardously abandoned by the maps, loses its form and its color, shrinks in size until there is nothing left but a brown shadow, later on grey, a blurred, fragile, dusty memory, finally nothing.
It is clear that Robinson Crusoe changed my life. It did not change yours? You cannot imagine the envy I feel because this means that you can still read it for the first time. That you can still experiment this supreme emotion of the moment when Robinson leaves his hut, looks on the ground as he does every day, and discovers there a small green, tender plant that is familiar to hin because it is wheat; a grain of wheat that has come all the way there nobody knows how; because he had looked eagerly for the grain transported by his ship without ever finding it; and still, one solitary grain mus thave kept stuck to a wooden board, a box, in the depth of a sack, to losen itself on time, to fall into the earth and receive the rainwater, to sun’s warmth until its hidden germination. Oh, what a sublime trick; oh, what majestic work of art; oh, what glorious daring; oh, what a marvellous milling wheel of those that in the moment of swallowing them nourish more than bread! How many grains of wheat still await us in all those books tha we still need to read!

If you go out on the street, if you let yourself guide by the sun’s will during the slow, lazy mornings of this spring that is eager to become summer, you will find more than you could carry home in half a dozen plastic bags. It is possible that they are already, right now, calling you, that they cry out your first and also your family names, because even though you might not believe it, they already know you. Go meeting them, do not doubt. Look at them, touch them, breathe them in, succumb to the ink’s drunkenness that flows from the sides of all the huts in all the fairs open in nearly every Spanish city, and breathe in their perfume. Because newly-made books smell agreeable all year round, but when their smell mixes with that of spring, they fabricate an aroma very much comparable to the perfume of happiness.

© original text: Almudena Grandes, El País Semanal, 2009
© translation: this blogger, 2009

On Amazon.com I was not able to find any work by Grandes translated into English.