Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

Niño, deja ya de joder con la pelota/Niño, que eso no se dice, que eso no se hace, que eso no se toca. (Boy, stop annoying me with that ball/boy, you can't say that, you can't do that, you can't touch that)

"Esos Locos Bajitos" - "Those Crazy Little Ones" (Joan Manuel Serrat)

When did some of us, parents, stop having fun and start freaking out? Was there a time, place, date, when we said: "Enough's enough, baby is not baby anymore, he/she is growing up, I'd better apply to Parental Anxiety School before admission is closed"?

I was recently at the pictures with my wife, our daughter and our son. He actually went on his own, having stayed the previous night at his mate's. There he was, a pre-teen, slowly waltzing his way into thirteen, surrounded by four or five kids his own age without a care in the world. And yet I felt anxious. He's not wearing his jumper, I thought. My wife told me to chill out, don't spoil it, please. I muttered something to myself, something to do with colds, with his asthma, with looking after himself, but deep down I knew I wasn't right.

There's a big difference in how my wife and I approach our children's upbringing. I am, or rather, have become more overbearing. She is more laissez-faire. I tend to shout too much, get all worked up and think of harsh punishments when things don't go according to plan. She, on the other hand, tries to reason out with our kids, getting them to analyse what they've done wrong and how they can make amends (although occasionally she also loses her rag). Eventually I have come to adopting her method, but it's still a steep climb for me. I have an inkling as to why it's such a struggle, but based on my own background it shouldn't be so. I was given free rein when I was a child, with a lot of strings attached, mind, but I had more freedom than my sister-cousin who was six years my senior and living in the same flat. When I look at a photo like the one that adorns my post today (taken from Concurso 2009 Magazine Digital) I'm usually transported to a very contented existence when play was my eternal companion. Following this logic I should be as relaxed a parent as my spouse is. But no, I'm not.

There are a couple of factors as to why: one is migration and the other one is environment. The former can better be explained through the process an immigrant undergoes when he or she settles in a different culture and his/her existence is only made up of the present and future they chisel out in that nation. No past (except the one lived through conversations with other people, or exposure to art and/or the media) sometimes means that an uneasy feeling of not knowing creeps in. This is quickly followed by a certain paranoia when children arrive. It's that famous parental sixth sense. We smell danger everywhere, even when there's none. The second element is intricately linked to the first one since my surroundings are far from the tourist-friendly perspective people have of London. I live in a rough area with a high percentage of crime and unemployment. And although I love my barrio, I'm pragmatic enough to realise that when my children start going out on their own, I will be watching the clock anxiously and counting the minutes and seconds as I wait for them to come back home after a night on the town.

I would then like to believe that I would have been more lenient and relaxed about my children playing outside, for instance, had they been born in Cuba. I would like to think that just like I did when I was a kid, they would have been hanging out with their friends from dawn till dusk (after doing their homework, of course). The truth, however, is that I don't know whether I actually believe that scenario myself. Because being a parent is tough. There are never any easy answers to the dilemmas you encounter when raising a child.

Take a recent predicament. My brother-in-law was in town with his daughter. Both my children wanted to see their cousin and uncle, of course. But neither my wife nor I could drive them to their Nana's (where my wife's brother was staying). My other half suggested that we let our nine-year-old daughter go with her brother on the bus. On their own. That paranoia I mentioned earlier made an unwelcome appearance all of a sudden and I remember standing in our bedroom in a cold sweat. Our darling daughter? On a bus? Alone? No, not alone, my wife corrected me, with her brother, who, by the way, had just travelled on the Underground by himself a few days before. I forget now how many times I said no, only to give up at the last minute and admit (reluctantly) that at some point, one day, she would have to take a bus on her own. And if not now, when there would be an adult waiting for her at the other end, then when?

I'm aware that my worries are shared by almost every other parent out there. A cursory glance through Mumsnet, the UK's online meeting point not just for mums but also for anyone interested in parenting, is awash with examples of mothers and fathers' concerns. What I've also found out is that my anxiety might be rooted in a different phenomenon: the disappearance of the last vestige of childhood in me. This is a situation, which, if real, is very mortifying. After all, I've always believed that I still have a bit of that inner child, so necessary in austere times. For instance, sometimes I think I haven't yet lost the ability to observe the world as if I had a pair of new eyes. Curiosity still gets the better of me, without the fear of losing six extra lives (which I haven't got, anyway) or being confused with a small domesticated carnivore purring its way around Londontown. But I've come to realise that by restricting my children's freedom I'm neither putting myself in their position, nor in the position of a younger self many years ago.

Lou Reed sings humourously in "Beginning of a Great Adventure" the following lines: "I'd keep the tyke away from school and tutor him myself/keep him from the poison of the crowd/But then again pristine isolation might not be the best idea/it's not good trying to immortalize yourself". You're right, Lou, it ain't right, mate, to create a second you. That's why I prefer Joan Manuel Serrat's approach: "Nada ni nadie puede impedir que sufran/que las agujas avancen en el reloj/que decidan por ellos, que se equivoquen/que crezcan y que un día/nos digan adiós" ("No one or nothing can stop children from suffering/or the clock's hands from moving on/or kids from making their own decisions and mistakes/or from growing up and one day/ bidding us goodbye"). Still, though, I have kept my application form to the Parental Anxiety School fairly close, just in case. Or even better, under Michael Gove's new guidelines for "free schools" I might even create one such establishment myself. Care to join me, fellow parent?

© 2010

Next Post: "Venti" (Review), to be published on Tuesday 19th October at 11:59pm (GMT)

Road Songs (Special Edition)

I'm in a dilemma. I discussed the art of braking here and the beauty of bends here. What, then, should I call the ability to turn round a bend whilst braking (do you see what I did there? :-D) and letting the steering wheel slide through my fingers? Wheel-sliding? No, that sounds like an activity in which Dennis Hopper's creepy Frank Booth would indulge. Possibly with an oxygen mask on.

No, the manoeuvre I'm trying my best to describe involves the smooth process whereby a driver guides the movement of a vehicle as he or she turns a corner, for instance. Once the turn is accomplished - and you have neither cut the lane into which you drive nor gone wide into the opposite one either - you allow the wheel to come back to a straight position. However, how many of you perform this operation without barely touching the wheel, as you turn, I mean? It's almost as if you were letting this circular frame its own moment of freedom. There it is, shifting back as your hands act like a magnetic field, close to it but not on it.

When I was still learning how to drive, my instructor insisted that my arms' position was fundamental, not just in going on straight roads, but also turning around bends. My arms should neither be too tense nor too limp. This would enable me to negotiate any unpredictable hazards, like sharp corners.

What I also discovered was one of those untapped pleasures that linked directly to one of my passions: music.

In my first clip tonight you will be introduced to Camarón de la Isla, accompanied on guitar by Tomatito. These two legends of flamenco music are singing a poem originally written by Antonio Machado, 'La Saeta', and set to music by Joan Manuel Serrat (the gentleman at the beginning). When I began to write this post, this clip immediately came to mind because it encapsulates that feeling of freedom I am overcome by when the steering wheel of my car runs through my fingers without touching them. As further information, 'saetas' are compositions in their own right, commonly sung - a cappella - during Easter and other religious festivities. And you can feel the passion and fervour in Camarón de la Isla's voice. The song mentions both Christ (or Gypsies' Christ, to be more specific) and the Andalucian people. Enjoy.



And because this blog likes to celebrate all musical instruments alike, in the same way that it blows the horn for all aspects of driving, the second clip tonight has the bass guitar as the leading character. Often overlooked, a good bassist will render a band a solid foundation upon which the other members can build the remaining layers of a particular melody. Just like the joint triumvirate of driving around bends, braking softly and wheel-gliding (no, that name didn't work either, I'm still searching). In the meantime, Kings of Leon.



And to wrap things up tonight and kiss this section goodbye for good ( I actually did it a couple of years ago but brought it back after driving through northern Spain last summer, who knows? I'll probably revive it again some time soon) I bring to you Anna Ternheim's 'Girl Laying Down'. She - Anna, not the girl - is a Swedish singer-songwriter, who's had me tapping my foot ever since this song made it to Radio Paradise's playlist. It is dark and grim, but I love the piano. It reminds me of the firm grip on the steering wheel as you are about to turn a corner and the momentary loosening of it after both your hands slide down on either side of the wheel. Bliss. And if you have a funky, catchy name for that manoeuvre, do not hesitate to send your suggestions in (you can scribble it now on the palm of your hand, preferably bracketed with "lift Cuban in London's spirits"), it will be most welcome.

Copyright 2010



Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 21st February at 10am (GMT)

Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music

One of my favourite lines from a song ever comes towards the end of Billy Joel's 'New York State of Mind', the fourth track from his 1976 album 'Turnstiles'. It goes like this: "I'm just taking a Greyhound on the Hudson river line (piano-pounding, momentum building)/ 'cause I'm in (the piano pirouttes mischievously)/I'm in a New York (this is the moment when Richie Cannata's saxophone spirals up and down melodically) state of... (half a second silence) mind... (the whole band comes back for the finale)."

I have often wondered why I like this section of that song so much when I have never been to New York - though, I'd love to -, I have never got on a Greyhound bus and I don't even know what the Hudson river looks like (though I'm under the impression it's quite long and broad). Some of the theories I have come up with are: Billy's tribute to his hometown echoes my feelings for my beloved Havana, the Greyhound serves almost four thousand destinations in the US, thus, symbolising adventure and the open road for me; and the same goes for the Hudson river with its expansive mass of water.

But apparently there's more to my fondness for this song than I first realised. According to research conducted by the University of Edinburgh's Institute for Music in Human Development and London-based chamber group, the Nash Ensemble (The New Statesman, 31st August, 2009), we, human beings, seem to have a built-in sense of musical harmony that allows us to engage in producing and/or listening to music. And I can hear all of you singing like a one-voice choir: But we knew that/after all, music is a universal language. I'm afraid there wasn't any effort on my part to get those verses to rhyme. Apologies.

I agree with your above refrain, of course, but there was one element, amongst some others that Guy Dammann lists in his excellent article, that attracted my attention straight away. It was the fact that music affects the amygdala, the part of one's brain that is involved in emotions of fear and aggression. And although that might not explain, at first sight, my penchant for that particular line of 'New York State of Mind' (hostility=love?) it might clarify why my hearing Billy singing that verse brings such a raw response in me. In my case, as a person living abroad now, my tension and dissonance manifest themselves in occasional displays of melancholy and nostalgia (I call them my fado moods, after the Portuguese musical genre), which obviously trigger off the need to listen to a particular kind of music.

It was in this situation, also, that I found myself recently after visiting Pilgrim Soul, one of my favourite blogs. This space is the domain of the Puerto Rican-born, US writer Judith Mercado and on it she discusses issues such as: identity, literature and music. It was the latter on which one of her recent posts touched when she uploaded a clip of a famous Puerto Rican song, 'Lamento Boricano' accompanied by an exquisite write-up about the sources of inspiration for one of her novels and the reasons as to why this particular track had been chosen. What could have been a totally personal experience (hers) became a shared tear-jerking moment (for me). I last heard 'Lamento Boricano' when I still lived in Cuba and I cannot even remember by whom, however, that was beside the point when I watched the video. What happened after can only be illustrated through Guy Dammann's explanation in the aforementioned feature: 'the significance of musical sound derives from the representation of that most elusive of all structures: the human subject itself.'

To wit: Judith Mercado and I had just shared a subjective moment together, steeped in our common history. We both come from the same neck of the woods, Latin America, and 'Lamento Boricano' had helped bring that cultural experience closer.

Of course, it helped that the song de marras was sung in Spanish. What happens, though, when we are touched by a composition written and performed in a language we don't understand? Does it still move us? Again, I agree with Guy when he states that 'when we hear music, we hear that another sensitive being is present. The proof of this is, in the best tradition, strictly empirical: people have been discerning this in the music they love for centuries.'

Personally, what both research and essay showed me is that music truly is the universal language and Guy's essay confirms that suspicion. I have known people who don't like visual arts at all, or can't stand dance. I've met others for whom cinema is irrelevant, but I have never heard of someone who doesn't like music, and I mean, someone who doesn't like any musical style. The world of harmonies might be linked to the area in our brain that guarantees our survival, but we can certainly vouch for the safety and warmth we find in its bosom even if one has never taken a Greyhound on the Hudson river line.

And to prove or disprove Guy's theory about music being a universal language, my clip today is a classic from that revered Catalán singer, Joan Manuel Serrat. Whilst going through some of my previous posts recently - yes, I do that every now and then so as to avoid repetition - I was struck by my sheer hypocrisy. There I was, a few weeks ago, ranting and raving against the classics' dictator and his monoculture, and yet, I am also guilty of contributing to that phenomenon. Most of the clips I upload on this blog are in English. I know why, of course. My blog is in English, most of the readers are English-speakers (in fact, bar a couple of them now, most fellow Cubans have deserted me, [sobs]) and I live in an English-speaking country. But still, I think my little Iberoamerican corner should be promoted more. That's why, in order to redress this imbalance and after seriously berating myself, I will be posting music in Spanish and Portuguese more often. I hope you will still enjoy it and more importantly, understand it. Although, taking into account the song below, that will sometimes be a hard task even for Spanish speakers.

'El Romance de Curro "El Palmo"' deals with the eternal topic of unrequited love but in this case the ending is quite sad and tragic. Curro, a fake Gypsy, loves Merceditas, who works as a cloakroom assistant. The latter elopes with a doctor and Curro dies of love. Quite simple, really. But if there's an aspect of Serrat's songbook and poetry on which we, fans, can always count is the lack of simplicity in his melodies. His songs are powerful vehicles that travel the whole gamut of human experience, from sheer regional patriotism (cor, the guy was born in Barcelona, you don't get any more patriotic than that, all right, then, since you insist, Basques, too, have that local pride embedded in their DNA) to sublime romanticism ('Penélope' and 'Lucía' come to mind). So, 'Romance...' goes beyond the traditional tale of unreturned passion and delivers an emotional, poetic narrative, teeming with themes such as: class, deceit, manhood ('Y Curro se muerde/los labios y calla/pues no hizo la mili/por no dar la talla') and the afterlife. For Spanish speakers, who, as I was, are at a loss over some of the terms Serrat uses in the song, find below a little glossary for you. And I hope you enjoy the clip. Many thanks.

Pegarse el piro: To leave, to escape.
Marcial Lafuente Estefanía: Prolific writer of cheap western novels.
Cura- pupas: Doctor.
Palmar o palmarla: To die, in this case 'Curro fue palmando', Curro was dying.



Copyright 2009

Next Post: 'El Último Trago'(Review), to be published on Wednesday 23rd December at 11:59pm (GMT)

Road Songs (Variations) (1st Part)

Cars, cars, cars. They are useful, neccesary, some may even say indispensable. The truth is, though, that they make our life easier. Their function is very simple, they serve as a vehicle to transport us from A to B. So, why is it so essential to have the latest make of a particular car? Why do some people fuss over this or that Ford, or this or that VW? To me, there are just a handful of elements I would be concentrating on if I was looking to buy a new motor (something I have never done in my life). Colour would be one, blue or black being my favourite ones. Make, as in VW instead of Ford, although taking into account that our car is a Nissan and it's turned out to be very good, I would probably go for that one brand. And functionality. What do I want it for? For the daily grind? Then, there's no point in getting a Chelsea tractor (that's a 4x4, by the way, for those of you who don't live in Britain, or rather, in London). But if I need it for longer journeys, then an eco-friendly SUV would be a better option.

What I can't see myself doing and I am lucky to have a wife who doesn't do it either, is change our vehicle everytime a new model becomes available. I might be a consumerist, but I do have my limits.

Music is pretty much the same. Certain songs have stood the test of time and they remain classics for that reason. However, you always get second-rate musicians or even brilliant ones trying to re-invent the wheel and attempting to add their own input to what is already a masterpiece, only to ruin the original work completely. And please, Annie Lennox and Wyclef Jean, take no umbrage for this tirade. Your respective cover versions of songs penned by Bob Marley and Pink Floyd did not go down very well with yours truly. Neither did they with many folks I know.

So, what follows below is what happens when an artist truly respects the piece they are covering and not only injects their own energy but maintains the original idea. Sinead O' Connor did it with her take on Prince's song 'Nothing Compares to You', to the point where no one believed it was originally by the Artist Formerly Known as Prince. Ditto Led Zeppelin and their cover version of 'When the Levee Breaks', originally sung by Memphis Minnie. And as the proud owner of both records (the Zep and Memphies') I can safely vouch for the quality displayed by the British band in that track in their album Led Zeppelin IV (or the one with no title).

So, there you have it, when it comes to cars, if it ain't broke, don't fix it, and if it's still going, then, let it go a little bit more. As to music, the same rule appplies, if you're going to rework a classic, please, please, please, make sure that you have what it takes to make it work. The second part of this post will appear next week.

Copyright 2008