Tag archive for medio pollito (RSS)

The storks of war

Posted: January 30th 2010 00:05. Last modified: January 30th 2010 00:07

A fragment from Italo Calvino’s quasi-17th century folk romance, Il visconte dimezzato/The cloven viscount, uses storks as a portent of battle. Several unconnected 2nd century Greek accounts might appear to do the same, perhaps particularly if one’s a lazy sod and doesn’t read anything but scraps of stuff on Google Books.

Rhyme vs reason

Posted: October 4th 2009 18:05. Last modified: October 4th 2009 18:24

Restif de la Bretonne goes one step beyond Shakespeare and says that poetry is the language of Gods and beasts, and that reason speaks in prose.

El gallito inglés / le coq anglais

Posted: September 15th 2009 16:47. Last modified: February 2nd 2010 22:41

Proud English cock, limp Latin hen: the binary opposition of English and Spanish fowls as a metaphor for the contrast between growing British military might and declining Spanish power.

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Spanish history

Modern Spanish fiction

Spanish classics

On this day

Barcelona

  • March 18 1376 

    Tempestad marina en las costas de Barcelona, donde se hunde un barco procedente de Génova y fallecen 60 personas.

Josep Pla, Palafrugell (1918-9)

  • 18 de març de 1918 Aquest matĂ­, al safareig del jardĂ­, he vist la primera oreneta de l’any. L’ocell era al cantell de pedra del dipòsit, molt a la vora de l’aigua, i tractava, amb grans dificultats, de beure’n una gota. A la tarda, en passar per davant de l’esglĂ©sia, les orenetes xisclaven volant, descrivint circumferències molt amples, al voltant del [...]
  • 18 de març de 1919 Nit. Em quedo sol a la cambra de la dispesa. VigĂ­lia del meu sant. Recordo que molts anys enrera, a Palafrugell, en tal nit com aquesta, passaven colles d’homes per les cases que cantaven els goigs. «Sed, JosĂ©, nuestro abogado – en esta vida mortal» –deien. Perfectament. Hom els donava mitja dotzena d’ous i se’ls havia [...]

Catholic hagiography

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