Dulce de Crazy

When mi esposa got back to the US from studying in Argentina back in the late 90s, she spun wonderful tales of an exotic sweet treat called dulce de leche. At the time, I had never heard of the stuff. Now I feel like I can’t walk two feet without having a dulce-de-leche-flavored goodie in my face: ice cream, pudding, muffins, power bars, and even Girl Scout cookies!

Now I’m not complaining. I love the stuff! And if you’re one of the unlucky few who has yet to try it, I’ll let you know that it’s a milk-based product that has some similarities to caramel…but is so much better. Go try some! But what brought about this latest craze in the US? The whole thing reminds me just how derivative US product development can be. One hamburger place has mini-burgers…boom! they all do. One place serves extra-thin-crust pizza, tomorrow it’s everywhere. The same thing seems to have happened with dulce de leche. Who started this food fad? And does it really matter? While you ponder that, why not try making some on your own. Here’s a particularly quick and easy method…

Vicky Cristina Barcelona : a film by Woody Allen

I feel like I start many of my posts by saying, “I don’t generally care for…” Well, I generally don’t care for Woody Allen’s films, at least those from the mid-80s on. Though I should admit that I was once a huge lover of his work from the 70s, particularly Manhattan. That film has such lush and powerful images of New York that the city itself is basically a protagonist in the film. The same is true for Barcelona in Vicky Cristina Barcelona, which is easily the best Woody Allen film I’ve seen in years. I enjoyed it so much that I now regret not having seen it on the big screen when it was first released.

On the face of it, the film is about two young American women spending a summer in Cataluña before getting married (in the case of one) or getting on with figuring out what to do next in life (in the case of the other). The women, the eponymous Vicky and Cristina, meet a fiery Spanish painter (Javier Bardem) who tries to romance and seduce them with a trip to Olviedo. All the while, a wonderful Spanish soundtrack plays in the background and the golden lighting of Spain’s sunshine emits the country’s warmth to the viewer.

While the film is categorized as a romantic comedy, I found the work mostly about passion and art. And I can’t believe I just wrote that because normally such a sentence would make me groan. Vicky (Rebecca Hall) is practical, yet she’s obsessed with the energy and serendipity of Cataluña. Juan Antonio (Bardem’s painter) is the embodiment of such qualities for her, and she finds her passionate attraction to him disquieting and confusing. Cristina (Scarlett Johansson), on the other hand, already lives on the fly. She actually finds the stability of a romance, albeit a three-way one, to be an enticing forbidden fruit. Meanwhile, she also finds new expression in photography. But her Achilles’ heel of dissatisfaction always looms on the horizon. And then there’s Juan Antonio’s ex-wife Maria Elena (Penélope Cruz) who is nothing but passion and artistic expression. In the past, she tried to kill Juan Antonio because of her intense feelings. Now she steps back into his life when he’s in the middle of a new romance. Cruz’ facial expressions in the film are worth a thousand Oscars alone. And have fun practicing your Spanish skills while listening to her mostly improvised dialog with Bardem.

The film also rekindled my appreciation for Allen’s humor. In particular, I keep running my favorite scene from the film over and over in my head. In it, Juan Antonio explains the philosophy of his father Julio Josep (Josep Maria Domènech) to Vicky. Julio Josep is a crusty Spanish poet who refuses to publish his work because he hates the world. By withholding such beautiful words from people, he’s punishing this place that he hates. I had no idea that poets had such power!

Mark Sanchez : the dream is over…but only for this season

One of the more interesting stories to come out of the NFL this year is Mark Sanchez, the rookie quarterback for los Jets de Nueva York. After a few bumps in the middle of the season, he magically led his team to the AFC Championship game, only to fall to los Potros de Indianápolis Sunday. But if his success continues, he could be the thing the NFL has been looking for…an in with the “untapped” Latino market. (It’s always about money, no?)

The NFL has been champing at the bit for a while now to interest Latinos in their dominant sports and business brand. Early last decade, the league made a commitment to reaching Spanish-speakers in North America by hiring marketing firm Lumina Americas to help them penetrate this demographic that normally follows fútbol, boxing, and baseball. In their quest, they’ve created NFLatino and a plethora of Spanish-language commercials. They’ve also held several matches in Mexico, including a game in México, D.F. (Mexico City) in 2005 that drew over 100,000 attendees. But for all that, the league has generally lacked high-profile players with a Latino identity—the kind of thing that could ignite passion in the community for the game. But that could change because of the full-blooded Mexican-American Mark Sanchez, who—unlike some other Latino players in the past—proudly wears his heritage on his sleeve.

Sanchez first came to prominence as a player when he was the quarterback at the University of Southern California. As you probably know, USC is located in Los Angeles, which is home to more than 4 1/2 million Latinos, roughly 75% of whom are of Mexican decent. Mark’s good-boy charm and Mexican heritage made him an instant hit with LA Latinos, and his fame even spread south to parts of Mexico. Sanchez eagerly embraced his popularity with the Latino community there by acting as a role model to Latino youth in the area and even briefly wearing a mouthpiece colored with the stripes of the Mexican flag (it proved to be a controversial move). He also worked on boosting his Spanish-language skills while at USC so he could more easily participate in interviews with Spanish-language media.

Can Sanchez build a similar reputation in New York, and even the country as a whole, now that he’s playing with the Jets? Obviously New York also has a huge Latino population, but it’s mostly comprised of Puerto Ricans and Dominicans—folks known mostly for their love of béisbol. It will be interesting to see if he tries to court them the way he did the Mexican community in Southern California. And while I should say at this point that I generally can’t stand the Jets, I have no problem rooting for Sanchez. He seems like a stand-up guy, and you have to respect his hardworking roots and interesting family story. His great-grandfather Nicholas Sánchez, for instance, came to the United States to perform backbreaking work as a fruit picker. His grandfather George settled in the Palo Verde section of Chávez Ravine, only to be displaced when the area was cleared to build Dodger Stadium. Mark’s father is a firefighter and trained his children to excel in everything they do. For instance, the elder Sanchez would practice Mark and his brothers well into the evening by pulling his truck up to the field and running them through drills by the illumination of headlights. Anyway, I wish him success. ¡Viva Sánchez!

¡Arriba! Chapter 6 : La Comida : Spanish Food Vocabulary

Luckily, my first chapter working in ¡Arriba! begins just where I left off with Sol y viento…food. But who wants to stick with just the textbook? Unfortunately, when you want to go beyond your book for expanded vocabulary and better comprehension, it’s hard to find more than just long vocabulary lists on the web. And while there’s nothing wrong with lists, I find it hard to make those words stick when I have no phrase, context, or tangible object with which to associate them. Nonetheless, there are some nice collections of food words out there, like this one at vocab.co.uk (be warned that this particular page includes some words—el zumo, la patata, etc.—that are peninsular Spanish and not generally used in the Americas). But for me, I keep returning to the wonderful land of YouTube.

There are a couple of types of YouTube videos out there that can help a beginning student. The first are videos made by educators or language instruction sites. Most of them are just rehashes of vocabulary lists with some generic pictures thrown up on screen for association reasons. But better than most are Señor Jordan‘s short bits, like this one on vegetables.

But of course, there are some really bad educational videos out there too, and they always seem to come in the form of songs. Maybe this diddy that burrows into your brain and refuses to come out helps you, but for me it’s just…

Personally, I find the best way to learn vocabulary and context is by watching kids shows like Pocoyo. Generally new words and grammar are easy to grab, and the dialog isn’t so advanced that the student finds herself lost in a narrative wilderness. However, I will be the first to admit that kids shows aren’t always super interesting (Pocoyo excluded). So perhaps I should start looking for a telenovela that takes place in restaurant instead. Until I find it, enjoy Pocoyo’s imaginary restaurant, as well as two educational videos aimed at kids. By the way, the last one left me wondering just what the heck the Arizona Nutrition Network is.

Cronos : a film by Guillermo del Toro

I was first introduced to Guillermo del Toro‘s work when I saw El espinazo del diablo (The Devil’s Backbone) during its first release in the United States, and that’s still my favorite film by him. And while I’ve seen most of his films since then, I had never seen Cronos (his first) before this weekend. It was certainly interesting…and gruesome, and it seemed to have been influenced by the work of David Cronenberg: artsy B imagery, corrupting technology, gore, organic machinery, bugs, and so on.

The story centers around Jesús Gris, an antiques dealer who finds a strange object in the base of one the statues in his shop. The thing—kind of a metallic beetle—grabs onto Gris’ hand and injects him with some sort of fluid. It turns out that this device brings eternal life…but also a vampiric lust for blood. So at first, Gris is feeling pretty good. The elderly man’s wrinkles start to clear up, he has more energy, and he’s got “that feeling” again, if you know what I mean. But then Angel, a brutish English speaker, comes calling. (By the way, Angel is played by Ron Perlman, who is one of my favorite genre actors.)

Angel’s uncle Dieter de la Guardia has been ruthlessly trying to track down the Cronos device (beetle thing) for years. It turns out that it was invented by an alchemist in the 1500s and actually has an operation manual, which de la Guardia owns. His method for going after the device is sending his nephew Angel to take it by force. And even though Angel is a good brute, he doesn’t like doing this work for his uncle, a man living a Howard-Hughes-esque existence in a penthouse above his Mexico-based factory, because he’d like the old man to die and pass along his wealth. But Angel goes about his business anyway. However, he finds Gris isn’t a pushover…even when he’s pushed over a cliff.

Cronos isn’t for the faint, even if it does include some of the fantasy elements that made del Toro’s El laberinto del fauno (Pan’s Labrynth) such a hit with everyone when it came out. Expect some squirming in your seat as you watch Gris lick blood off the floor, get poked up by a metal beetle, tear skin off, and be introduced to Angel’s lead pipe.

New Day, New Text

After frustrations with my last teacher, I’ve moved to a college further away from where I live, in hopes of finding a more solid instructor. Yesterday was our first class, and I would say I’m optimistic. The sad thing about this situation is that my new teacher doesn’t use Sol y viento as his text. So I must say goodbye to the baby I carried for five months last year. However, since I own the film, I plan on sticking with María and Jaime’s story through the end—so no worries for you Sol y viento film fans. But my educational focus is now on ¡Arriba! Comunicación y cultura, which doesn’t seem significantly different from the old Sol y viento. There’s still a video component, and each chapter centers around a particular country and a song by one of its artists. I’m hoping that’s a novel idea in practice. We’ll see. Our instructor also requires that we do online work through My Spanish Lab—something that’s new for me. But I have to ask…why does Pearson Education have to promote this aspect of its course materials in such a boring and uninspired manner? The following video looks like an industrial safety video—something I’m unfortunately too familiar with. It’s 2010, folks!

The Devil’s Miner : A film by Kief Davidson and Richard Ladkani

I first came across The Devil’s Miner while channel surfing a couple of weeks ago. I landed in the middle of this film about children working in the silver mines of Bolivia and was immediately mesmerized by the main subject, 14-year-old Basilio, who is essentially the narrator of the film. Luckily, Netflix carries the film, so I was able to see the piece in its entirety.

Basilio is the stand-in for his father, who passed away when he was much younger. He cares for his mother, brother, and sister financially by venturing into the depths of the mountain to help crews tap veins of silver. And it’s as dangerous as you probably imagine. The film claims that more than 8 million workers have died in Bolivian mines over the years and that children make up a disturbing proportion of the workforce, in part because miners live very short lives in the country. Many of them fall victim to silicosis by the time they reach forty.

Though rather short (1hr 20min) in length, the film is able to show quite a bit about the culture of Bolivia’s Cerro Rico (“rich mountain”) mining community in Potosí. In particular, we see the miners’ devotion to Tío, the devil who controls the bowels of the mountain. “Outside we believe in God, our Savior. Inside the mines, we must believe in Satan, Tío.” Miners create shrines to the mountain’s Tío, offering cigarettes, coca, and other delights to the figure, in order to ensure safe work in the mines. Because the Tío, it is said, can eat the miners up if he wishes.

The film is simply made and quite powerful, but the sorrow of it makes your stomach hurt. However, the subjects are far from victims, at least in terms of their attitude. Basilio is constantly thinking of ways to avoid spending the rest of his life in the mines, though the viewer naturally worries about whether he’ll be successful or not (he is according to an epilogue included in the extra material on the DVD). And his maturity is amazing. Nonetheless, I couldn’t help but mourn the loss of his childhood while watching the film.

Vocab:

la mina : mine

el/la minero/a : miner

la plata : silver

el polvo : dust

A triumvirate of border videos : humor or missteps?

The first is the newest. It’s a commercial for Mexico’s Gana Gol lottery featuring US soccer star Landon Donovan. And it’s hot…if you’re judging by the temperature of Mexican anger towards it. First of all, Donovan is generally despised in Mexico. He’s the face of US soccer, which has a pretty heated rivalry with our neighbors to the south. He’s also the US’s all-time leader in both goals scored and assists, more than one of which came in crucial matches against the Mexican side. Oh, and he did once urinate on the field in Guadalajara—that didn’t go over so well. So to add to all of that, Donovan dresses in an over-the-top campesino outfit in this particular commercial that many Mexicans find offensive, both because of what it suggests and who is wearing it. After sneaking across the border to buy a ticket for the lottery, he’s stopped by a border guard who recognizes him. When questioned why he’s there, Donovan says, “winning in Mexico is easier,” which raises the ire of the guard (we assume he thinks LD means in fútbol). When Donovan explains it’s easier to win the lottery, the guard lets him go…but not before taking his Ganga Gol card for himself.

The second is a short-lived commercial from Burger King that was quickly removed from airplay when the company was hit with a major backlash from Latinos. The commercial promoted BK’s “Texican Whopper,” which they claim combines the taste of Texas “with a little spicy Mexican.” In it, a tall cowboy and an extremely short lucha libre character come together to be roomies and share the joys of eating Burger King.

And finally, the ever controversial Mexican hip-hop/rock band Molotov and their 2003 hit “Frijolero,” which has made people laugh, swear, sing, and yell since its release. I’ll have a lot more to say about this band in the future, but for now I think the video speaks for itself. Though I should tell you that the Spanish portions of the song are sung in a way to parody American pronunciation of Spanish and that the group includes a US expat in the lineup, Randy “El Gringo Loco” Ebright, whose father was formerly a US DEA official in Mexico.

juegos del fútbol americano

Gerald Erichsen already has a great list of football terms here. So to make this guy really happy (don’t click through the link if you are easily angered by raging morons), I thought I’d just give a list of this weekend’s playoff match-ups in the NFL. Next week, los Potros de Indianápolis, los Cargadores de San Diego, los Santos de Nueva Orleáns y los Vikingos de Minnesota return to action.

los Jets de Nueva York vs. los Bengalíes de Cincinnati

las Águilas de Filadelfia vs. los Vaqueros de Dallas

los Cuervos de Baltimore vs. los Patriotas de Nueva Inglaterra

los Empacadores de Green Bay vs. los Cardenales de Arizona

Sol y viento : Who are these people?

So you’re bored and the next semester of Spanish doesn’t start for another week or so. You could be reviewing all the Sol y viento lessons from last semester so you start 2010 off on the right foot. Maybe you could even go back and rewatch the previous episodes of the film *without subtitles* and really polish those Spanish skills. But if you’re me, you’ll just waste time googling around the internet to find out the goods on the actors from your textbook’s favorite didactic telenovela instead. Oh, glorious Friday with nothing to do…

Yup, that’s your favorite antropóloga and profesora, María Sánchez, throwing her weight around with a credit card and getting phone assistance from a crazy Muppet impersonator. While smooth Frank Lord—the actor who plays Jaime Talavera—can be a tough cat to track down on the internet, Sol y viento‘s María, Javiera Contador, is everywhere. Down in Chile, she’s a star of advertising, film, and tv, including her current gig as co-host of MEGA‘s Mucho Gusto with José Miguel Viñuela.

But my favorite thing about Contador, other than playing the good-souled María Sánchez, is what she also appears to be most known for in Chile, and that’s for playing Kena (sometimes spelled Quena) Gómez de Larraín on Casado con hijos: the Chilean remake of Married with Children. The following is a clip of Kena trying to channel her inner Shakira.

And here’s Wikipedia’s description of Contador’s character. Obviously it was produced by an android text translator.

Quena Gómez de Larraín (Javiera Contador): It is the careless mother of the family. It was Tito’s wife and mother of Nacho and Titi. Today carry 19 years of marriage in which Quena has never cooked, washed clothes or the house neat. Rather buy new clothes in liquidations that wash clothes you already have. Quena dresses with attractive colours, taken adjusted and low-cut shirts. She attracts young and attractive rates.

More on the rest of the Sol y viento cast to come.