Economist are predicting significant changes in the Real Estate market during 2015. The continued growth in the economy is expected to have a significant impact on interest rates, housing inventories, the number of able and ready buyers, and housing prices.
Hello I have read your article and I learn very great and new advices for our real estate business . Thanks for this and if I have any another query can I ask you?


text:
Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music
"It feels as if she's always been there, on the other side of my mind, knowing what the other half is thinking all the time." It was a typically cool evening in early December, mid 90s Havana. The annual Latin American Film Festival was in full swing and in between shows my friend A and I were discussing her love life. "If you'd asked me months ago if I would ever feel like this for another... you know... I don't know... I would have laughed in your face, but now... I just can't stop thinking about her. It's so... confusing". It was. And for me, too. My friend A was in a new relationship. But unlike her previous partner, her current squeeze was a woman.
Less than a year before my friend A, her then boyfriend, my girlfriend at the time and I attended a concert by the Cuban singer-songwriter Pablo Milanes. I remember thinking at the time that A was the happiest I'd ever seen her since meeting a year before in uni. She confessed to me that she'd just come out of a long streak of short, failed relationships. But the guy she was seeing now was the one. She had no doubts. And neither did I.
What happened then in those intervening ten or eleven months? D happened.
Human sexuality is one of those fascinating areas that provoke both awe and inhibition in equal measure. Introduce the subject at a dinner party and the floor usually clears in the same way it does when a lame DJ makes a bad musical decision in a club. If there is a no-no when we are in polite company it is the discussion of politics and/or sex (and quite often the two of them go hand in hand). Unless, that is, we're in a small, intimate environment, with friends who will not judge us harshly or unfairly for the comments we might make. On the other hand, if your companions are strangers or acquaintances, the conversation might feel a tad bit uncomfortable.
Why? I guess that it comes from two sources: one is the image we present to the world, the other one is fierce ownership of the still waters that run deep inside us. My friend A was a second year university student at the time she started her relationship with D. She came from a stable home, with parents happily married, sister studying engineering (and coming out of the closet, too, shortly after A), good academic results and a strong network of friends, of which I had just recently became a member. To the outside world, she was the standard heterosexual woman, the opposite of the butch caricature with which lesbians are still unfortunately identified. That was the image she presented to the world. But inside her an emotional turmoil threatened to derail her. After all, can we prescribe sexual orientation?
That's where the second element comes in. Regardless of what society demands of us, we always have our inner world in which to seek refuge. What happens when we retrieve to our lair and we watch our feelings and thoughts in a gigantic plasma screen? What happens when those notions and sentiments do not conform to the stereotype expected of us? I, along other friends of A's, were there when she confronted her sexuality. At the time that long period in which she learnt about herself, about love and above all, about loving another woman, was also educational for me. As a former homophobe (yes, I hang my head in shame, but at the same time, I must declare that homophobia was, and probably still is, endemic in most Cuban schools at the time. Sadly, it's the same situation in many countries around the world, including the UK), I had a close insight into A's life which convinced me that when it came to affairs of the heart, gays and straights were joined by the same umbilical cord. It wasn't just my friend A who unwittingly helped me in this process. Another close friend of A and mine, (D, not her girlfriend, but a young man) was also homosexual and he became my best pal until I left Cuba in '97.
The key in A's development as a person who found the strength to come out of the closet years after - alas, not with her first girlfriend - was how she turned her back on that first element I mentioned earlier, the image we present to the world, whilst slowly embracing the second: her inner self. It was a process that I can only compare with how the sun breaks through the tree branches on a cold autumn morning after an overcast sky, even if the analogy sounds corny.
One of the misleading notions about people who 'cross over to the other side' is that it's all about sex. And yet, I don't remember either A or D (male) making much fuss about it. In fact, I recall asking A that question in relation to her former beau and her response was that though she'd had enjoyed intercourse with him, with her new partner it was different. For starters, there was much more talk and mutual hobbies, not just physicality, but even when they got physical, it was often cushioned by reciprocality. Secondly, there was a connection, a strong tie that bound them together.
Same-sex relationships, sadly, are the easy target of many modern societies, developed or not. Just recently in the US, president Obama has released a video to draw attention to the problems and dilemmas faced by gay teenagers in that country after a spate of suicides amongst homosexual adolescents called for more direct intervention. Compare Obama's attitude with the malevolent, American-imported, world of gay-to-straight conversion already taking place here in the UK, according to research carried out by journalist Patrick Strudwick, and you might understand why so many homosexuals still seek the (false) comfort of the closet, rather than accepting who they are. Add religion to the mix and being an out and proud gay person is as explosive as dynamite.
Human sexuality cannot be prescribed anymore than you can make a final decision, aged seven, about the colour of shoes you will be wearing for the rest of your life. One of my wife's better friends (female) lives in cohabitation with a guy who was gay for most of his life, including having long-term, meaningful relationships. Yet he fell for my wife's friend so strongly that they even started a family together.
Still, mention of this in the pub on Friday night could lead to your spending the rest of your professional career with the 'office weirdo' label stamped on your forehead. And yet, I know, from experience and from watching people around me, that sexuality is never black and white.
My friend A lives now in Spain, in what I'd like to imagine is a fulfilling and beautiful relationship. And although we have not seen each other for many years, this post is my way of thanking her for existing, for being my friend and for helping me look at the world with less mist on my lenses. Because the mist is always there, sometimes it's denser, sometimes less so, but it's how we learn to cope with it that counts.
Next Post: "La Lectrice/The Reader (Review)", to be published on Tuesday 2nd November at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, Depeche Mode, Halo, music
Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum
By the time you read this post I will have probably licked my plate clean. Oh, yes, I belong to the don't-leave-anything-on-your-plate-don't-waste-any-food brigade. Especially when presented with yet another succulent Nigel Slater's recipe. I also admit that I had never made gravy before so I was looking forward to adding another plus to my burgeoning cook's CV. When it comes to sauces, though, I fall on the thick side of the argument. Give me a gravy with curves, full of bulkiness and compactness any time.
Liver and Bacon (the words for the recipe are Nigel's)
For the gravy: slowly cook 2 large onions, peeled and thickly sliced, in 50g butter until pale gold, soft and sweet. Add a level tbsp of flour. Brown lightly then stir in 300ml of stock. Simmer for 20 minutes then serve with the liver. Fry or grill the liver and bacon, allowing 150g liver per person and 2 rashers of bacon. Some mashed potato would be good here.
Cook the onions very slowly and the liver very fast. The usual cooking time suggested for fried onions is often underestimated. They take a good 15-20 minutes to cook evenly. Hurrying the procedure will forfeit sweetness. Grill the liver for a minute or two. The pan must be searingly hot so the inside stays pink while the outer crust forms.
This is food for the soul and I'm a soul man. It should follow then that my first musical offering tonight is Sam and Dave's timeless anthem, "Soul Man". Tuck in!
From 60s US soul to proper, heartfelt, Spanish flamenco-pop. Malagueño Toni Zenet is a recent discovery, courtesy of a fellow Spanish blogger, but I already have a couple of his albums on my amazon to-buy list. This tune translates as "Dreaming of You" and it's as autumnal as liver and bacon. Enjoy.
And last, but not least, here's one of those songs that makes you want to stay in as soon as the streetlights are switched on and the nights draw in. Céu has one of those voices that you are unlikely to find in a post-Crimbo, January sale. This woman's vocals can only be purchased at a unique shop called 'Soul'. Heart-warming as thick onion gravy.
Next Post: 'Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music', to be published on Sunday 31st October at 10am (GMT)
Posted by A Cuban In London at 23:59 8 comments:
Labels: A Cuban In London, Céu, Cubans in London, Food, music, Sam and Dave, Toni Zenet
Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts
Sometimes certain passages in a book remind me of a good old, fat, hand-rolled Cuban cigar. Before I carry on, though, a small disclaimer. This post is not product-placement for any company nor an endorsement of smoking. Smoking kills and I have no intention whatsoever of picking up that habit in the next two-hundred years. What this post is about is the process. That process that turns a green tobacco leaf into a world-class cigar and how, in my opinion, it can be compared with the similar method whereby a bunch of words can be transformed into a well-written scene.
But what have cigars got to do with writing, I hear you ask? In order to answer that question I need to give you some background information on work experience in Cuba and how it functioned when I was a teenager. From the age of twelve at secondary school we were supposed to go to work on the countryside for approximately forty-five days between January and February every year. This was usually called escuela al campo (countryside school). The aim was a noble one: to instill the spirit of collectivism in us and to bring us closer to the soil, source of our nourishment. The reality, however, was completely different and rather prosaic. The only activities we were interested in were the three 'Ls' (especially if you were in your mid-to-late teens): getting lagered, laid and lazy. I missed the first four years of my escuela al campo through illness but eventually I joined the ranks of hormonal adolescents looking to escape parental control through the usual mix of booze and sex.
I was sixteen and in college (high school in the US and other countries) when one cold morning my peers and I alighted in Pinar del Río, Cuba's westernmost province. The job we were given, as befit this region, was in the tobacco fields. The tasks were various: collecting the leaves, sewing them and curing them. The head of my brigade happened to be a close friend of mine, and that was reason enough for me to skive my way through the whole stay. Days were spent swimming in a nearby river or going for long walks with a bunch of fellow slackers. It was with them that I learnt about the process of rolling a cigar.
Just in case you think that you can grab a few tobacco leaves and mould them into one of those famous Montecristos or Partagás made famous by Hollywood movies, please, take some time to reconsider your decision. You might be in for a nasty surprise. First of all, tobacco leaves are cured indoors, in special huts or cottages, hence the sewing. They are, first of all, threaded together in a line and put on long poles. The sticks are then placed inside the hut with the greener leaves at the bottom and the more 'mature' ones at the top. Try smoking the uncured leaves and you risk poisoning yourself (pesticides were still in use around those years, I don't know now). But if you attempt to take the leaves at the top you're also taking a gamble; tobacco huts are very tall (think of a three or four-storey building) and if you slip off a pole you might fall to your death, as it, sadly, happened to a couple of youngsters from another college at the time I was doing my work experience.
My friends took a chance on the green leaves and used to sit outside the cabins or in the middle of the fields (anywhere was fine as long as you were out of the teachers' sight) rolling their future cigars whilst chewing the fat. I observed them many a time and always marvelled at their ability to wrap the thin tobacco leaves without losing the thread of our conversation. The ultimate goal, however, was to lie back and enjoy the fruit of their - unofficial - labour. Puff after puff delivered a certain drunkenness and stupor that enveloped them like a thick cloud. Some of the more inane and yet deep colloquies I've had in my life took place during these dopey sessions. But, as I mentioned before, it was the process of 'rolling up' that I really paid attention to.
It's the same with some scenes in certain novels. Especially those passages of a descriptive nature. I find the same care and concentration on minutest details. It feels as if the author is carving out a wooden sculpture with his or her bare hands, moulding the words to suit their taste. 'Rolling up', you could call it. By way of explanation, I will give you an example that appears in the book that's kept my mind busy for the last few weeks, "Uncle Tom's Cabin". This scene appears in Chapter XI, Volume I, 'In which property gets into an improper state of mind'. It is the prelude to George's debate with Mr Wilson, his former employer. The passage takes place in a B&B or hostal where slave-traders mix with merchants and farmers. I love the way Harriet Beecher Stowe sets the tone for the events that are about to unfold:
"In fact, everybody in the room bore on his head this characteristic emblem of man's sovereignty; whether it were felt hat, palm-leaf, greasy beaver, or fine new chapeau, there it reposed with true republican independence. In truth, it appeared to be the characteristic mark of every indivdual. Some wore them tipped rakishly to one side - these were your men of humor, jolly, free-and-easy dogs; some had them jammed independently down over their noses - these were your hard characters, thorough men, who, when they wore their hats, wanted to wear them, and to wear them just as they had a mind to; there were those who had them set far over back - wide, awake men, who wanted to a clear prospect; while careless men, who did not know, or care, how their hats sat, had them shaking about in all directions. The various hats, in fact, were quite a Shakespearean tragedy."
A passage that could otherwise be thought inconsenquential ends up being essential, in my opinion. First of all, there're the humorous observations about how folks in this neck of the woods wear their hats. The language is simple but full of details. The description smells as fresh as the morning dew-perfumed bottom three leaves of the tobacco plant, the ones you pick up first. Secondly, there're the psychological remarks: "there were those who had them set far over back - wide, awake men, who wanted to a clear prospect; while careless men, who did not know, or care, how their hats sat, had them shaking about in all directions." That reminded me of my friends' assessment of their 'roll-ups' after lighting them. Not that they cared that much, the intention always being getting high. Last, but not least, there's that reference to Shakespeare, a little nod that caught me unawares the first time I read the novel and which I enjoyed even more the second time around. You would never try to link the hats donned by a room full of men, mostly slave-traders, to "the Bard of Avon", but somehow the passage pulls it off beautifully. In pretty much the same way, my friends were able to converse about disparate subjects without a care in the world. What to an outsider was mostly gobbledegook, to us it made perfect sense. I forgot to mention that as the only person who didn't smoke in the group, I had the most fun.
I believe that there are many more examples of scenes in both fiction and non-fiction that could be compared with the simple and creative art of hand-rolling a Cuban cigar. And if that sounds like free advertising for you to go away now and light up, I don't care, suit yourself. Though not a smoker myself, I know what kind of 'roll-up' I will be sitting down to enjoy tonight. Here's a clue: it has words and pages.
Next Post: "Food, Music, Food, Music, Food, Music... Ad Infinitum", to be published on Thursday 28th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, Harriet Beecher Stowe, literature, Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts, reading, Uncle Tom
Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and a Video Installation
Last summer on our way to Wales, my family and I spent one night in Bristol. Having never been to this port city, I found its history and heritage interesting but the highlight of my visit was an exhibition by the artist Kerry Tribe at the Arnolfini gallery. The name was "Dead Star Light" and it comprised film, video and installation works exploring our relationship with memory, subjectivity and doubt. My favourite piece was "Here & Elsewhere" (clip below), which featured an interview between the British film critic Peter Wollen and his ten-year-old daughter, Audrey. Their conversation was accompanied by an on-screen vertical seam created by two synchronised images shown side by side. Eventually both the visuals and the girl's answers merge in an organic way that suggests fluidity and continuum.
Kerry's project was based on a similar work by Jean-Luc Goddard and Anne-Marie Miéville entitled "FRANCE / TOUR / DETOUR / DEUX / ENFANTS" which dates from as far back as 1978.
The first element that caught my attention when I saw "Here & Elsewhere" was the certainty and assurance with which Audrey answers Peter's questions, even if a couple of seconds later she casts doubts over her own responses. Her views on existence in relation to her physical body are very interesting in that she acknowledges that there's an on-going transformation in a person's anatomy, i.e., hers; yet, there's a core that remains unalterable. I thought that maybe in the intervening ten years (and that's probably the case now, as the video was shot in 2002, so Audrey must be eighteeen years old now) she changed her mind and began to see the core as malleable as the surface.
One of the more intriguing sections in the video was the one on remembering. Do the events, objects or persons we remember come forward to our memory? Or does our memory go out to hunt for them? And do we remember things from a past we haven't lived only through references (for instance, for Audrey is the 1970s, for me could be the 19th century) or does that past come to us through past experience of which we have no recollection?
Many of Audrey's responses brought back memories of a sci-fi novel I read many years ago, when I still used to enjoy that genre. The book was called "Fábulas de Una Abuela Extraterrestre" ("Fables of an Extraterrestrial Grandmother") and it was written by the Cuban author Daína Chaviano, who was also an English translator, interpreter and linguist. Although the novel was for children, some of the ideas crossed over into the adult world and one of them had me scratching my head for many years after I read it. It involved the Euclidean theory and how children over the age of five or six could not think of shapes other than as squares, triangles, circles and so on. The reason? School. But what happens before? In what shape does a child of two or three years old see the world in his/her dreams? I won't even mention language because there's a close relationship between language and Euclidean geometry. You name each axiom according to the assumptions you intuit from them. Let me pose a challenge to you, reader. Look around your room. Can you think of the shapes around you in any way other than square, rectangular or triangular? Try. See if you can come up with a new word for round. For instance, brgewd. Now, go out and tell the first person you come across that the full moon you saw last night was brgewd. Please, don't forget to send me postcards from the asylum. Especially if they give you a room with a good view.
Kerry's notions of movement in relation to space and time (5:37 in the clip) were challenging and difficult to explain. Are we moving when we're sitting still? I think we are. In that case, why ask a child and expect him/her to sit quietly when his body hasn't stopped moving? And I'm not referring to the gentle rocking that, especially, younger children are prone to doing when required to remain still. Are we perhaps confusing inactivity with silence? In those seven seconds it takes her to reply to her father's question, Audrey has moved in time and space quietly and smoothly.
My conclusion when I finished watching the video (and please, if you have children yourself, watch the clip below with them without any prompting and ask them what they think and above all, feel about it) was that Kerry's experiment on image, memory and the duet time/space was an invaluable tool to dig into that very often confusing but fantastic territory which sometimes can be off-limits (consciously or unconsciously) to some of us, adults: children's thoughts and imagination. What I would love to know is what your answers to Peter Wollen's questions would be. After all, occasionally our lives might resemble an on-screen vertical seam with two synchronised images shown side by side. You and the other you.
Next Post: "Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts", to be published on Tuesday 26th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, art, Bristol, Cubans in London, Daína Chaviano, Dead Star Light, Fables of an Extraterrestrial Grandmother, Fábulas de Una Abuela Extraterrestre, Here and Elsewhere, Kerry Tribe
Living in a Bilingual World (The One About Uncle Tom)
I guess it's now time for the defense to have its turn in the case of Uncle Tom vs Famous Epithets That Might Be a Tad Bit Unfair. I am, of course, referring to the eponymous character of Harriet Beecher Stowe's novel "Uncle Tom's Cabin" and how over the years he has become a byword for obsequiousness and servility. In short, a sell-out.
I first came upon this term when I was still in university. It was a period during which I began to read so-called "black literature", mainly African-American authors (Walker, Morrison, Hughes). In addition to enriching my vocabulary in English, this type of reading gave me a cultural context that enabled me to understand many of the references to which I had been exposed until then, like for example in music.
I had to wait several years before I laid my hands on the book. However the first time I read it I remember having an uneasy and funny feeling, as if something wasn't quite right. It's taken me a second reading to realise that it's the use of "Uncle Tom" as a pejorative word that makes me squirm.
This is a complex situation. On the one hand I feel deep respect for the English language, for the people who speak it and for the authors who write in it, regardless of their country of origin. On the other hand, I just don't feel the use of "Uncle Tom" as a term of abuse. I felt awkward the first time I heard it and this second reading of the novel has convinced me that in fact Tom is a hero, if maybe not as prominent as George, the runaway slave, who flees to Canada with his wife Eliza and their child.
To explain further my sentiments, I'll share an anecdote with you. One day, many years ago, a black former colleague of mine, from Nigeria, said jocosely: Yo, (insert my name), man, my Cuban n****r! I immediately replied: Don't ever use that word when addressing me again, thanks. I kept calm, I didn't even raise my voice, but he knew he had vexed me. Dealing with the "n" word was easy (regardless of all the arguments and counterarguments made by the Reclaim Brigade over the years). However, dealing with the "Uncle Tom" concept is a totally different situation.
It is true that Tom is servile and obedient. It's also veritable that when faced with the opportunity to escape, he doesn't seize it. He is passive, way too passive and I can imagine how his docility might have played out against the backdrop of the civil rights movements in the 50s and 60s. But, let's dig deeper, shall we?
If you've read the book, you will probably remember the chapter where Tom is on a ship with Haley, a trader and Lucy, a female slave Haley buys en route to the south. Lucy's child is stolen, sold and taken away from her whilst the boat is docking in Louisville and she is leaning over the rail to see if her husband is amongst the crowd gathered at the wharf. Haley breaks the news to her calmly and coldly. Lucy doesn't cry, she doesn't make a scene. At night and whilst Tom is half-asleep, Lucy jumps off the ship to a certain death. Or maybe freedom, we don't know. But what we do know is that Tom doesn't wake Haley up and, when questioned the next morning on Lucy's disappearance, he just replies: "Well, Mas'r, towards morning something brushed by me, and I kinder half woke; and then I hearn a great splash, and then I clare woke up, and the gal was gone. That's all I know on 't." Tom could have thwarted Lucys plans by alerting Haley, but he doesn't do it. He just prays for Lucy's soul.
It's the same with Eliza's escape. When Mr Shelby, Tom's owner, sells some of his slaves to pay off his debts, Eliza takes his young child (who is to be sold to Haley) and escapes. Tom, on the other hand, doesn't. Cowardice? Hmm... no. I believe that what motivates Tom to stay behind is loyalty to all the other slaves because if he also elopes, Shelby will have "to break up the place and sell all."
There's another reason why I find the phrase "Uncle Tom" unfair. Tom is a product of a society whose foundation lay on Christian values. Both South and North used the Bible to pursue and justify their goals, even if sometimes they were marginally different (the conversation between St Clare and his cousin Ophelia in Volume II, Chapter XIX, throws up some very interesting issues). Tom, to put it bluntly, is drenched in religious doctrine. He is so brainwashed that he can no longer think for himself. When asked to explain his predicament, he can only talk in scriptural language. To use someone as naïve as he is as a whipping figure for all the wrongs visited on black people in the States and beyond is, in my humble, non-native opinion, misleading. A better example of selling-out would be St Clare's servants: Mr Adolph, Rosa and Jane. They look down on the rest of the slaves in the house, oocasionally using and abusing the "n" word when addressing them. They adopt the same language, airs and graces of their white masters. Unfortunately calling someone a "Mr Adolph" or a "Maid Rosa" doesn't sound as forceful as Uncle Tom.
As I mentioned before, self-censorship is not this column's central message. People have the right to say whatever they want in whichever way they see fit, as long as they don't use demeaning language. However, in Uncle Tom's case, and especially if you've read the novel, the defense has not closed its argument down yet.
Next Post: "Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and Music", to be published on sunday 24th October at 10am (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Living in a Bilingual World, Uncle Tom's Cabin
Venti by JoAnne McKay (Review)
Autumn is my favourite season of the year. Regular readers of this blog will probably know that. After all I am an autumn sign (November) so there's always been a special attraction to that period between late September and early December when brown, yellow and auburn leaves give Max Brick and Tom Daley a good run for their money at synchronised dive. It is, at least for me, a time for presents. Of the birthday type, but also of the visual kind.
Yet, the best gift - or prize, rather - I have received so far this autumn came completely out of the blue. And although I'm not planning to tell the whole story, the award involved goats, Scottish sheep and even a bookmark made of sheeppoopaper (as the caption reads).
A few weeks ago, the poet JoAnne McKay, who writes the blog "Titus the Dog", ran a competition in her cyberspace. Readers had to pick the winner of the Thornhill Arts Painting Contest 2010. I rarely say no to a challenge, so I joined in the fun and left my comment. To my surprise I won and that's how a beautifully hand-made book (copy number 54) containing McKay's second collection of poems turned up on my doorstep one morning, said hello and without waiting for a reply, jumped up into my arms, asking to be cuddled and cared.
"Venti" is a book to be read in autumn. Its sixteen poems carry the chill of early mornings and the long shadows of premature evenings. Its verses arrive with a sign that read "Enjoy with a mug of hot chocolate whilst wearing a woolly jumper and socks."
I was pleasantly surprised to see the multitude of subjects JoAnne covers, from seahorses ("Hippocampus hippocampus") to parenthood ("Shadowchild"). Being familiar with her blog, which I visit regularly, I have been exposed to her poetry very often and I find it to be an interesting mix of tenderness, observation and humour. The evidence is everywhere in the book. "The Magdalene Fleur-de-Lis" is a sweet little opener ("Call me Iris. Call me Lily. Your flower/I'll keep the boys' chins up in wartime/French letters and kisses a lover's mime/that only costs them three francs for an hour/It's memory of me that lends them power/yellow flag on an azure bed through time"). Facetiousness is a common thread that unites many poems even if they don't look like comic pieces at first sight. I especially liked the ending in "Octopodes": "Your death always follows your creation/If threatened you squirt ink/Pedantic, romantic, octopodes/I think I know you".
I can't write about "Venti" without mentioning the four accompanying images by artist Matt Kish's. They fitted so well around McKay's poetry that it's almost impossible for me now to read "For Ishmael and Elijah and Those Who See" without visualising the black and white whale next to it.
I will sign off this review tonight with a poem whose title I mentioned before and which shakes me to the core everytime I read it. A few weeks ago I blogged about simplicity and how some writers manage to convey the deepest of messages with the least amount of words. This is one of those examples. Thanks JoAnne for my prize.
"Shadowchild"
Shadowchild swings across the moon,
bumps my heart and is past.
Fierce cord once, the thread thins
and I must sing the pain of children:
you cut to see them grow.
by JoAnne McKay © 2010
Next Post: "Living in a Bilingual World", to be published on Thursday 21st October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, JoAnne McKay, literature, poems, Poetry, Venti
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?
Next Post: "Venti" (Review), to be published on Tuesday 19th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, Esos Locos Bajitos, Joan Manuel Serrat, Mumsnet, music
Let's Talk About...
... balls. Yes, balls. But not of the spherical kind but rather the male type. Yup, let's talk about testicles. More specifically, let's talk about your nuts, male passenger on the Victorian Line on Wednesday 8th September during rush-hour. Let's make ourselves comfortable in order to analyse your sitting position, sprawled all over two seats, the better to accommodate your ever-expanding reproductive glandular empire.
Allow me, my good fellow to give my readers a more accurate picture. It's around 6pm, people want to get home, by any means necessary. There's a lot of pushing and shoving as befits the London Underground eco-system. No sooner a seat vacates than you see someone charging for it with the same zeal Charlemagne employed against the Lombards, Saxons and Avars. Babies on prams yell, elderly people look disconsolately at avid readers, more engrossed in their books than in their surroundings. And yet, in the midst of this chaos, you, sir, find time and space, above all, space, to make room for your bollocks. Oh, yes, pardon my French, but there's no other way of going about it. I enter the carriage only to find your (unexpected) audience suspending their disbelief that someone could be so egotistical to not share the seat - a separate entity, mind, with its own feelings and prone to launching lawsuits against selfish prats like you, so, beware, there might an envelope in the post for you and... your balls.
I know that certain men carry their nuts around as if the latter had a life of their own, including head and limbs. I've done it before and I'm aware of how powerful and virile it makes you feel. Until you're brought back down to earth with a mighty BANG! You finally meet someone who doesn't like the constant "scratching" and "accommodating" and forbids you from doing so in her presence. You, sir, probably still take your testicles on holiday, imagining that they are walking by your side, twins holding hands, the whole lot of you off to somewhere nice and hot. You even get upset when you are stopped at immigration control on account of your 'furry bags' carrying unidentified liquid within them. Relief is mixed with anger when they're waved through because the amount is so low that it's not even considered to be relevant. That's why you had to take up two seats on that train. To show us who had the biggest cojones. Forgive me, again, I complained recently about the misuse of that Spanish swear word and how it's bandied about indiscriminately by journalists and reporters alike and here I am using it, too. But there's no other way, señor cojonudo, in which I can write about you and your nether parts.
As I scanned the faces of the - mainly female - passengers on that carriage that evening, I had a vision in my mind that some of them were thinking of turning you into a stand-in for Stefano Dionisi for the second part of "Farinelli (Il Castrato)". An understudy, if you wish. All they needed was a pair of gardener's shears. Preferably blunt. As for me, the moment I saw you I thought that you had probably modelled your sitting position on the former route of the Orient Express, Paris to Istanbul. With your bollocks somewhere in Vienna or Budapest.
This is not a rant, Mr Balls. It's not even a vendetta. I don't think you will ever read this post. And even if you do, it won't change anything. After all, you ignored the piercing stares of your unwilling congregation. No, the reason why I'm writing this column is to let you know the effect of your actions. I occupied one of the two seats you vacated when you got off at King's Cross. Next to me one of your former victims accommodated her heavy frame. No sooner had she sat down than she shot me a look that seemed to say: "Are you planning to do the same, my dear fellow? Because I won't put up with that kind of behaviour again!". To which my body response was a meek glance in her direction that shouted out: "No, luv, mine are a lot smaller!"
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, Let's Talk About
Killer Opening Songs - (So What by Miles Davis)
There are some records that cross the borders of musical polarisation. Sometimes they do so by fusing different rhythms, thus appealing to various tastes. Examples exist aplenty: Sergio Mendes and Brasil '66's debut album "Herb Alpert Presents" gave us the ultimate jazz-infused bossa nova Killer Opening Song, "Mas Que Nada"; The Beatles re-invented pop music by dint of being adventurous and experimental, especially in the latter part of their career; and more recently Nitin Sawhney has shown us the way in which globalisation, at least in music, can be beneficial.
However, there are also other albums that gain plaudits without abandoning the genre to which they belong. And this is the case with "Kind of Blue", Miles Davis' 1959 masterpiece. Long hailed as the jazz record that even non-jazz fans enjoy (a notion of which Mr Davis might have slightly disaproved), this LP transformed music itself. It is indicative of "Kind of Blue"'s creative range and reach that amongst its contributors was the young saxophonist John Coltrane, who had already found fame himself with the release of "Blue Train" a couple of years before. The other saxophonist in the record was Cannonball Adderley.
Above all, "Kind of Blue" became Davis's a turning point in his musical career in that he went from a bebop sound, predominant at the time, to a more experimental and improvisational one. The Killer Opening Song, "So What" bears witness to that change.
Smoky, laid-back and blues-influenced, "So What" begins with bass and piano duetting in free rhythmic style. This is quickly followed by Davis on trumpet and John Coltrane on sax. What K.O.S. loves about this track is how the piano whispers its way into the song (sadly not shown in the clip below); it's almost like a murmur so as to announce that hey, this is the real McCoy, fellas.
"So What" is followed by a collection of songs so impressively sophisticated that it shouldn't come as a surprise that fifty-one years later after "Kind of Blue" first came out, they still sound fresh: "Freddie Freeloader", rhythmic simplicity at its best; "Blue In Green", an acoustic feast with the trumpet and piano solos as the main course; "All Blues", one of the better-known compositions from the album for its melodic and groovy range and "Flamenco Sketches", the song that apparently Quincy Jones claims to play everyday .
According to pianist Billy Evans, who played on all tracks but one ("Freddie Freeloader") in the record, Miles only conceived the settings for the different pieces hours before going into the recording studio, which is why spontaneity pours forth on every track.
Whilst trailblazers like Charlie Parker broke away from the rigid structure that used to permeate jazz, pioneering bebop in the process, and innovators like Ornette Coleman brought a nihilistic element into the genre, musicians like Miles Davis provided a new colour to what was already a rich palette in the jazz world. Here's to Miles and to another Killer Opening Song.
N.B.: This post is dedicated to Daniel, the Cuban in Brazil, who recently e-mailed me to tell me that I haven't featured much jazz in my K.O.S. section. You're right, Daniel, and this is the first of many posts I will be writing about a music genre I adore.
Next Post: "Let's Talk About...", to be published on Thursday 14th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, Jazz, Kind of Blue, Miles Davies, music, So What
"I still think that if we give more money to poor countries, they will solve their problems". Call him stubborn and he can be sometimes, but my son was arguing his point fair and square. We had just finished our lunch and were going through the pieces of homework he had completed and the ones he had yet to. The above point was made whilst discussing his Geography assignment for which his teacher had asked him to research the charity, aid and trade side of the relationship between developed and developing nations.
Upon hearing my son's comment, my wife felt disheartened, my daughter remained undisturbed whilst my emotions ranged from optimism to despondency.
The reason why my consort felt dismayed was because she was under the impression that my son was clever enough to realise that aid without a mid- and long-term plan would be fruitless and possibly detrimental for a developing country. We've had several discussions at home in the past about the role charity plays in the economic relationship between rich and poor countries. But I think that it's tough for a twelve-year-old to know when to identify colonial legacy as an influential factor and when to focus on bad governance - domestically speaking - as another element to include in the equation.
Prior to the general election in May this year, the three main parties pledged to support the UN's target of spending 0.7% of gross national income on aid by 2013. However the real story was that trade did not feature as highly in each party's manifesto as it should have done. The Tories were the ones that came closest to a tangible idea with some ambiguous, nice-sounding message about "trade and economic growth are the only sustainable way for developing countries to escape poverty". Both Labour and the Liberal Democrats just beat around the bush.
The whole "trade not aid" or "trade vs aid" issue is a murky one. For starters, I think that there's a charitable side to all human beings regardless of our provenance, or what we do. That we're able to empathise with those who are worse off than us is one of the human traits that still fuels my optimism. But sometimes we need to put our pragmatic glasses on and look beyond the rim. Where does aid really go? Who benefits from it? What are the long-term effects?
Apologies if I have already used this example before, but it's a standard one. If you carry a child on your shoulders everywhere you go from babyhood to adulthood, that child will never learn how to walk. Furthermore, at some point the child will be conscious enough to want to walk him/herself only to find themselves falling down at each step they take.
It's a similar case with aid. Countries that have long been dominated by powerful nations, or which have seen their economies suffer through sanctions or corruption are in a weak position when democracy is ushered in. Whilst some kind of stimulus package - to use a phrase de nos jours - is probably very welcome, at some point that country needs to, no, sorry, correction, must begin to fend for itself. Where we could do something to help is in clearing the path towards that nation's self-recovery and ultimately self-sufficiency. For instance, we should raise our voices in unison at the unfair way in which European farmers are subsidised by the state and the European Union, thus allowing them to sell their goods in Africa, Asia and America at lower prices. The outcome of this injust trade-off is that local industries can't compete and eventually they have to close or specialise in enterprises that will mainly suit the big corporations. No amount of aid will solve that, but pressure on parliament and government is one of the ways forward.
There's also another side of the coin with which to contend. It revolves chiefly around the fact that aid has been used on many occasions to bring a rogue political figure to power. Or it has been used to prolong and fund civil wars unnecessarily. There are examples aplenty: the Congo, Sudan, Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Another consequence is that in the same way we empathise with the plight of poorer countries, we put our blinkers on when it gets too much. I've heard many well-meaning people who give to charity and do voluntary work ask me: "Well, they've had time to sort themselves out, haven't they, so, why can't they get it right once and for all?". My answer varies depending on the person. Sometimes I go back to the reason at the beginning of this paragraph. Aid gets sidetracked by whatever dictator is in power and the beneficiaries are an elite who doesn't care about those on the lower rungs of the ladder. Or, I try to explain that it's quite hard for countries that have been dependent for so long, to find their feet in a few decades. But they, and I, too, can sense that the mood is changing. There's an economic recession going on and as of the 20th October in the UK, at least, we'll have a full breakdown of where the budgets cuts will fall. No one is safe, and when a person's job security is threatened, paranoia sets in. It follows that questions about the commitment to aid I discussed at the beginning of this post will be asked.
During that lunch both my wife and I asked my son, who had just had his grandmother (my mum) visit him from Cuba, if it was fair that her grandma couldn't come and go as and when it pleased her. We asked him which option was better: her grandmother earning enough money to pay for her own trip and expenses, or her continuing to be invited over by her son and his family without having the financial ability to even treat her relatives to a meal in a restaurant? To our relief he chose the former, but he was still adamant that aid was fundamental.
Maybe in time he will change his mind. I hope so. I am of the opinion that as well-intentioned as many people are, money or donations by themselves will not lift countries out of poverty. Good governance does, though. Fair trade where the beneficiary is the local community does, too. Above all, I would like my son to see people from developing nations as human beings who want to work and who would like to see the product from that endeavour turned into better living conditions. A bugbear of mine for many years has been the photo of the pot-bellied African/Asian/Amerindian child that comes with my weekend papers. It was effective for some time, but once you meet people from those continents - and I hail from that neck of the woods myself - what strikes you at first is that there's rarely a sign of self-pity. And there's plenty of evidence around of what happens when they use the power that is denied to them by both the big corporations and the Bono brigade (there's a famous story about the U2 lead singer, maybe apocryphal, that at a live concert he silenced the audience and said: "Everytime I clap my hands a child in Africa dies", to which an audience member snappily retorted: "Stop f*****g clapping then!").
But there's a factor that shouldn't be underestimated. A twelve-year old who takes time from thinking about getting a snake or wishing for a Wii (yeah, right, dream on, son!) to stop to muse on those less fortunate than him deserves to be commended. At an age when some of his peers are already using immigrants and aslyum seekers (sometimes in the same sentence without trying to understand the differences between the two groups) as scapegoats for all society's ills, the fact that he thinks that charity is the start- and end-point of economic development for poorer nations should be the least of my wife's and mine worries.
Next Post: 'Killer Opening Songs', to be published on Tuesday 12th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Cubans in London, Mc Solaar, music, Urban Species
National Poetry Day (UK)
I know it's one minute to midnight and very, very soon it will be Friday 8th October. But I didn't want to miss the opportunity to celebrate National Poetry Day in the UK, which is (was) on Thursday 7th October.
Here's my offering, by one of the UK's foremost, meekest and funniest poets, Benjamin Zephaniah:
"Everybody Is Doing It"
In Hawaii they Hula
They Tango in Argentina
They Reggae in Jamaica
And they Rumba down in Cuba,
In Trinidad and Tobago
They do the Calypso
And in Spain the Spanish
They really do Flamenco.
In the Punjab they Bhangra
How they dance Kathak in India
Over in Guatemala
They dance the sweet Marimba,
Even foxes dance a lot
They invented the Fox Trot,
In Australia it's true
They dance to the Didgeridoo.
In Kenya they Benga
They Highlife in Ghana
They dance Ballet all over
And Rai dance in Algeria,
They Jali in Mali
In Brazil they Samba
And the girls do Belly Dancing
In the northern parts of Africa.
Everybody does the Disco
From Baghdad to San Francisco
Many folk with razzamataz
Cannot help dancing to Jazz,
They do the Jig in Ireland
And it is really true
They still Morris dance in England
When they can find time to."
(taken from A Poet Called Benjamin Zephaniah)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Benjamin Zephaniah, Cubans in London, National Poetry Day, poem, Poetry
Back in the summer I attended a classical music concert at a local church. I don't know about you, dear readers, but I love music concerts in churches. Despite my secular nature, I enjoy the air of tranquillity and harmony these gatherings convey, plus the acoustics are much better.
On this occasion we were treated to a short, but intense, programme in which Beethoven's "Clarinet Trio Op 11" was included. I had never heard this piece before so it was a pleasant discovery for me.
I've listened to a fair amount of trio compositions over the years, especially by Mozart but until the pianist at the concert explained what made this specific piece - and genre - so peculiar, all I was looking forward to was to being exposed to yet another facet of the great Beethoven.
I don't normally like artists unveiling the secrets that lie well hidden inside their oeuvres, or those they execute. Craft is craft. I like the mystery, the magic, the je ne sais quoi, mais je ne veux pas savoir, merci. But I didn't mind the exegesis this time. The way the pianist spoke about the combination of different tones in the composition, high, mid-range and low, made a lot of sense and helped me enjoy more the artistry displayed by the performers. It also, unintentionally, sent me on a reverie whose outcome was very surprising.
The presence of the clarinet and cello in the trio is to prevent them from cancelling out the piano, as our impromptu compère informed us. But there's another effect, too. Whereas the first and part of the third movements are joyful, the second (Adagio) is sombre and solemn, if also beautiful. It was this section I enjoyed the most and it made me think of those books I've read in which the author suddenly changes pace, thus throwing the reader off balance.
Depending on the writer's skill, this effect can be highly beneficial or detrimental to the narrative (I'm referring only to works of fiction). If it's the latter, you usually lose an admirer or future follower. If it's the former, as the fragment below shows, then your reader will appreciate your efforts.
A good example of how successful a change in tone can be in a novel is Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale". If you're not familiar with the Canadian's author's masterpiece, this is a book about an imaginary country, the Republic of Gilead, where women's sole function is that of breeding. If they don't, they get hanged or are sent out to die of radiation sickness. The main character, Offred, is still hopeful of fulfilling her reproductive role, but there's one problem she's not able to overcome. She can still remember a time when women were free. Offred has not been totally brainwashed.
Whereas in the first five chapters the novel fluctuates between a descriptive and a mocking tone (and since it's narrated in the first person singular, we're able to sympathise more with the protagonist's woes), it's only in the sixth episode where Atwood gives the reader the harsh reality of what the 'breeding' process entails. A small disclaimer, though. Please, be aware that there's strong language ahead. I saw no point in using asterisks because that would have lessened the effect of the author's words. Thanks for your attention, you have been warned:
"My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he is doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved. Nor does raper cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice but there was some, and this is what I chose."
I've read "The Handmaid's Tale" a few times now and this passage has always left me speechless. The reasons are manifold: up to this scene, and as far as I can recall, the 'f' word had not been used, the first time it is, it's without an object, as in "Below it the Commander is fucking", yet the verb is a transitive one. That's why the next sentence starts with a "what", that is, the object. The dexterity that goes into that passage shouldn't be underestimated. The fact that the main character cannot find any words to describe what's being done to her is a challenge for the reader: if she can't, can you?
There's another passage in the same chapter, "Household", and on the same page that also manages to combine the horrific with the ludicrous:
"Serena Joy grips my hands as if it is she, not I, who's being fucked, as if she finds it either pleasurable or painful, and the Commander fucks, with a regular two-four marching stroke, on and on like a tap dripping. He is preoccupied, like a man humming to himself in the shower without knowing he's humming; like a man who has other things on his mind."
If in the first episodes the sentences are short and cogent, for this section Atwood makes an exception. Forty-one words in that first phrase. Forty-one words that render the handmaid's ordeal tragicomic in that the name of the woman holding her down is Serena Joy ("serene joy", maybe? is that what the women are supposed to feel?). In addition, the commander's rhythmic thrusts are caricaturesque and followers of Margaret's work will identify her very peculiar sense of humour.
In the same way that the second movement of Beethoven's Clarinet Trio changes the composition's pace from a brisk to a serious tempo, Margaret Atwood uses a similar trick to show us the horror visited on Offred and the rest of the handmaids. In both cases the result is pure virtuosity.
Next Post: "National Poetry Day in the UK", to be published on Thursday 7th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Beethoven, books, Cubans in London, literature, Margaret Atwood, music, Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts, reading, The Handmaid's Tale
Sometimes I struggle with words when it comes to writing a post. Not because they abandon me, although that has happened on a fair amount of occasions. No, the reason is, rather, that I tend to complicate things, to overdo them. To use a football analogy, it's the same situation as when a player is one on one with the goalkeeper and kicks the ball as hard as he can, only to rattle the post when a soft ripple into the back of the net would have sufficed. In my case, my Hispanic background is partly responsible for this excess of words. We use lots of subordinate clauses in Spanish, insert explanatory phrases in the middle of a sentence and indulge in annexing adjective after adjective after adjective to a single noun in a case of severe linguistic polygamy/polyandry. In short, I waffle.
Simplicity. That's what I call for sometimes. When I began blogging I wrote as and when it took my fancy, but then I got into a routine. No more than three posts per week, research them well, write a small intro so that I stay on topic and save them as drafts. But sometimes I stare at the screen, words bursting out of its frame and I suddenly think: "It's too much". What is too much, though?
The answer arrived recently. Or rather, it wasn't an answer as such but a thought that occurred to me a few days ago because, really, there's no response to that question. What is too much for you might be too little for another person. If not, ask anyone who's had to hand in a ten-thousand-word essay at university.
On that particular occasion I was driving around London and it was raining very hard. It was nighttime and the wipers were swish-swashing on the windshield. On the car stereo Janis Joplin was singing 'Me & Bobby Mcgee'. And there, right at the beginning, in the first verse, came two lines that made me ponder the simplicity vs complexity dilemma: "Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Bobby's hand in mine/We sang every song that driver knew." How uncomplicated, isn't it? And yet I had always overlooked those words. Up to then, if you had asked me, I would have said that the phrase that had always stuck in my mind from that track was "Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose" but on that night I looked beyond the "windshield wipers" of the song and began to see the other drivers'. What came back was a harmony of blades, each dancing its own solo piece, and yet at the same time part of the same rubber choreography. If you've ever driven in the rain at night, especially when it pours down, you will be acquainted with this phenomenon. Stop at a set of traffic lights and you will notice each car's wipers going their own way, moving at their own speed, different from your own pair. After a while, though, you begin to notice certain coordinated movements that make them resemble a chorus line ready to execute a jeté together. Throw in indicators and you'll be watching a West End musical in the comfort of your own car. Swish, swish, blink, blink! One, two, three, four, and... one, two, three, four!
Let me go back to that line: "Windshield wipers slapping time, I was holding Bobby's hand in mine/We sang every song that driver knew." Its beauty lies in its simplicity. How many times have we caught ourselves remembering songs we've sung until we're hoarse in the back of a car? How many times have we held hands with friends, windows rolled down, motorway ahead of us? Sometimes the tracks being played don't even appeal to us that much, but it doesn't matter; we share the same enthusiasm the person behind the wheel has for them because we want to sing every song the driver knows. In just a couple of lines Kris Kristofferson and Fred Foster give us the splashing of memories, the rustling of bygone years.
The second example I can think of simplicity trumping complexity is a song by the Argentinian musician Charly García. Called "Los Dinasaurios", the track deals with the junta years in the late 70s and early 80s in that South American nation. I have seen my fair share of movies, listened to a great deal of songs and attended a few painting/photo exhibitions that focus on this subject. But Charly's melody beats them all because of its straighforwardness. As it happened with 'Me & Bobby Mcgee', there were a handful of verses that caught my attention the first time I heard this melody back in my teenage years. In this case they were: "Los amigos del barrio pueden desaparecer/los cantores de radio pueden desaparecer/los que están en los diarios pueden desaparecer/la persona que amas puede desaparecer/Los que están en el aire pueden desaparecer en el aire/los que están en la calle pueden desaparecer en la calle/los amigos del barrio pueden desaparecer/pero los dinosaurios van a desaparecer." ("my friends from the neighbourhood can disappear/ the singers on the radio can disappear/those in the newspapers can disappear/the person you love can disappear/those in the air can disappear in the air/those on the street can disappear on the street/my friends from the neighbourhood can disappear/but the dinosaurs will disappear"). In the song, the 'dinosaurs' were the military and I don't think I need to explain the 'disappear' bit. We're all acquainted with the 'missing' in Argentina.
But it is the next set of lines that brought home the whole horror of this situation. In 'Los Dinosaurios' Charly also dealt with the systematic rape to which the girlfriends, wives and partners of the 'disappeared' were subjected. Although it was not covered as much as the torture meted out to the anti-junta activists at the time, cases of sexual assault came to the fore after democracy returned to Argentina. To read those lines is to expose yourself to the slow rotting process of the human soul:
"Cuando el mundo tira para abajo yo no quiero estar atado a nada/imaginen a los dinosaurios en la cama/Cuando el mundo tira para abajo yo no quiero estar atado a nada/imaginen a los dinosaurios en la cama." ("When the worlds pulls you down I'd rather have no attachments/imagine the dinosaurs in bed/When the worlds pulls you down I'd rather have no attachments/imagine the dinosaurs in bed"). The intensity of the verse is stressed by the tone of the piano the second time around; it's stronger. So simple a line, yet so visual in context and so far-reaching in range.
I admit that I like waffling occasionally. It's almost a trademark. But sometimes I feel jealous of how certain writers, musicians, photographers and artists can convey the deepest of messages in the briefest way possible. After all, even if you haven't got a car, your windshiel wipers will continue to slap time.
Next Post: 'Of Literature and Other Abstract Thoughts', to be published on Tuesday 5th October at 11:59pm (GMT)
Labels: A Cuban In London, Charly García, Cubans in London, Janis Joplin, music
Sunday Mornings: Coffee, Reflections and a Video I...

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaCommonCrawl


We have the best airport transportation stretch limo services from the city of Lisbon, Porto and Faro, and are at your disposal to take you anywhere.
A trip to work, a special birthday or a night out with old and great friends – one stretch limo whatever the occasion, let VIPLIMOUSINES PORTUGAL help make this night spectacular!
A stretch limo – Limousine is therefore a great way to get anywhere.
Surprise someone special with a stretch limo – Limousine ride! Offering a limousine ride as a surprise gift is a special way of showing that how much you care about that person … will never be forgotten!
01 Stretch limo – offer exceptional services for transporting conferences and conventions to restaurants and fashionable parties in the city … your work group always deserves the best, and VIPLIMOUSINES PORTUGAL is always at your disposal to help with this work efficiency.
A wedding is a memorable event in the lives of the bride and groom, as well as their families and friends. It may not be the first thing you think of when planning a wedding, but transportation is equally important and needs to be weighed in advance … Stretch Limo we're here to help.
To a Stretch Limo contact VIPDRIVE / VIPLIMOUSINES PORTUGAL and let us be the one to drive. With our experience, and the comfort of our vehicles and stretch limo, we will verify that we have the best transport solution for a dinner of all in total safety.
Fly in a private helicopter with the guarantee of having an experienced pilot and where it communicates easily with you in English or French … It will fly over the famous and the magnificent Douro River of the city of Porto, flying through unforgettable locations in modern helicopters.
In the city of Porto we will always depart from the official heliport along the Douro River, where you can also opt for several tourist routes-tours in advance.
We promise it will be an unforgettable experience through one of our helicopter services!
Share this adventure of traveling by helicopter, with friends and family, where you are guaranteed all the professional support of our company with official license of the tourism of Portugal!
You can choose to upgrade your experience by adding a private driver to this helicopter ride. A private driver will pick you up at your apartment or hotel and take you to the helicopter terminal in the city of Porto in an exclusive Mercedes-Benz Sedan.
The driver can wait for you and your helicopter flight, and then accompany you directly back to your hotel-apartment in the city of Porto.
Just sit back and relax. We promise you an unforgettable experience and where everything will be treated in advance and worry free in this magnificent helicopter!
Have not booked your hotel or apartment in the city yet? Staying with a friend / family?
Do not worry, you can provide us with this information up to 72 hours before this premium helicopter service to the city of Porto.
Fly in a private helicopter with the guarantee of having an experienced pilot and where it communicates easily with you in English or French … It will fly over the famous breathtaking beaches of the city of Lisbon, flying through unforgettable locations in modern helicopters.
In the city of Lisbon, we will always depart from the official heliport leaving the city, where you can choose several tourist routes-tours in advance.
You can choose to upgrade your experience by adding a private driver to this helicopter ride. A private driver will pick you up at your apartment or hotel and take you to the helicopter terminal in the cities of Lisbon in an exclusive Mercedes-Benz Sedan.
The driver can wait for you and your helicopter flight, and then accompany you directly back to your hotel-apartment in the city of Lisbon or Porto.
Do not worry, you can provide us with this information up to 72 hours before this premium helicopter service to the city of Lisbon.
Your wedding day should be an occasion you will always cherish and remember, Vip Limousines Service specialized drivers in Portugal are well known for providing quality transportation services in luxuriously equipped vehicles.
At Vip Limousines Service in Portugal, we know the best places from the cities of Lisbon, Porto and Algarve and its surroundings, to hold your wedding rehearsal dinner.
Our experienced chauffeurs will carry your wedding party, your family and your friends for rehearsal dinner, so you do not have to worry about parking or appointing a designated driver.
Our friendly drivers will arrive on time to transport you and your guests, so you can sit in comfort and enjoy every moment of your special occasion.
Are you planning a bachelor party? At Vip Limousines Service in Portugal, we can arrange your transportation so that you can enjoy the excitement and fun of the special celebration of the groom or the future bride.
Our drivers will arrive at your location on time to safely transport the entire group to your party destinations, providing safe and discreet driver services in clean and well maintained vehicles.
At Vip Limousines Service in Portugal, we have the reputation of providing customized and professional limousine services that can not be compared by our competitors.
Our fleets of elegant and well-maintained limousines are available to ferry you to your wedding event with the luxury you deserve. Our professional drivers can cater to your every need by offering a driver service that will exceed your expectations in comfort, style and safety.
The experienced professionals of Vip Limousines Service in Portugal, have provided a safe and reliable transportation for customers in from the cities of Lisbon, Porto and Algarve.
Our team of experienced event planners and drivers understand that the special occasions that occur in your life are extremely important.
Our exclusive limousine services can add a touch of elegance to the arrival of your bachelor / bachelorette party, rehearsal dinner and wedding day celebrations.


text:
The Southwest Harbor Public Library is the public library serving Southwest Harbor, Maine.

The Southwest Harbor Public Library was built in 1895. On March 17, 1888 the Tremont Public Library Association was formed for the purpose of looking after books and raising funds for a permanent building. The Association's name was changed to the "Southwest Harbor Public Library." In 1893 the Library Association bought the lot of land where the library building now stands for $100.

The completed building was dedicated on October 31, 1895.

The library is one of the only libraries in Maine designated as a "Star Library" by Library Journal.

References

External links

Library buildings completed in 1895
Public libraries in Maine

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaWikipedia


text:
"Pashedu,
an artist in the service of the Pharaoh",
Casa del Conte Verde, Rivoli, Italy
January 24th-March 30th 2014
An exhibition with a full-scale reconstruction of the tomb of Pashedu, who once resided at Deir
el-Medina, and a set of contemporary art works, called "Pashedu un artista al servizio del Faraone,
L'arte egizia incontra l'arte contemporanea" [ Pashedu, an artist in the service of the Pharaoh. Egyptian
art encounters contemporary art ] is taking place at Casa del Conte Verde, di Rivoli Via Fratelli Piol 8,
10098 Rivoli (Torino) from 24 January 2014 - 30 March 2014 and is curated by Dr. Donatella Avanzo.
The exhibition offers a precise 1:1 scale reconstruction of the tomb of Pashedu, the original of which is in
the western necropolis of the village of Deir el-Medina. The copy, made with innovative technology,
patented by Gianni Moro, guarantees absolute accuracy in the rendering of minute details. It reproduces
the underground burial chamber, built to preserve the mummy of Pashedu, and the substructure,
culminating in the pyramid. Renato Ostorero is the author of the design.
The exhibition came from the Archaeological Museum "Eno Bellis" in Oderzo, Treviso, and has previously
appeared in exhibitions at the National Archaeological Museum of Aquileia and the Museo della
Centuriazione Romana in Borgoricco near Padua. The current exhibition at the Museo Casa del Conte
Verde is accompanied by another art event - as indicated by the subtitle: Egyptian art encounters
contemporary art.
Presenting Egyptian antiquities to the visitor nowadays can become a cultural event, that spans millennia.
The exhibits on display can originate in the far past while others could be created in more contemporary
times. To manifest this approach, the exhibition is accompanied by a large group of works by old and
modern artists and shows how the artefacts bridge the times. Among the exhibited pieces are Cleopatra,
a late Mannerist painting attributed to Francesco Salviati (1510-1563), late 19th century Ottocento con
Offerte al tempio, by Ludovico Raymond of Turin (1825-1898), and the female figure in the Pharaoh's
dream, by the sculptor Angelo Saglietti (Turin 1913-1979). These older examples are accompanied by
contemporary works - graphics, photographs, ceramics, paintings and mixed media by Silvana Alasia,
Candido Bergeretti Cavion, Tin Carena, Giuliana Cusino, Piero Della Betta, Silvia Gariglio, Nicoletta Nava,
Ludovico Raymond, Fabrizio Roccatello, Angelo Saglietti, Francesco Salviati, Giuseppe Tecco, Valeria
Tomasi, Massimo Voghera.
The exhibition is open from Tuesday to Sunday 10:00 to 13:00 / 15:00 to 7:00 p.m. Closed on Mondays.
Tickets cost: Adult 6.00 Euro / Discount : 4.00 Euro / School groups (min. 10 students) : 2.00 Euro
The exhibition is organized by the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Rivoli , Rivoli UNITRE
Seat with the support of GM Furnishings Gianni Moro, Comelec LTD Roberto Rubiola, Mrs. Laura Saglietti,
Aversa Gallery, City of Avigliana, Mr. James Lovera
With the collaboration of :
Prof. Alessandro Roccati - Academy of Sciences of Turin, Prof. Emmanuel Ciampini -
Ca 'Foscari University of Venice, Gian Giorgio Massara, Dr. Silvana Cincotti, Lorella
Colombino, Richard Cusino, Osvaldo Falesiedi, Dr. Roberto Fiore, and Nadia Hamid Haghighi,
John Hall, Livio Dry, isoTEST LTD
The information was translated and abbreviated from the Italian text by Paolo Nesta published at
http://www.comune.rivoli.to.it/interna.asp?idArea=230&idNews=2206&txt_ricerca=Pashedu
The page is no longer available on-line.
http://www.torinofree.it/201402192709/eventi/rivoli-pashedu-un-artista-al-servizio-del-faraone.html
The page was last modified on February 28th 2017
Hrdlička
Here we must take a step back in time and
remember that the origins of the
Egyptian Museum in Turin were laid with the
purchase of the first object for its future collection
in Rome on behalf of Carlo Emanuele I in 1630 -
the Mensa Isiaca. This was a Roman production of
an altar table in the Egyptianising style for an Isis
temple cult outside of Egypt. Over a century later,
between 1757 and 1759, Carlo Emanuele III
instructed Vitaliano Donati to acquire objects from
Egypt that might explain the significance of the
table. The Museum was founded in 1824 with the
acquisition by King Carlo Felice of a large collection
of 5,268 objects assembled by Bernardino Drovetti,
who, following his service with Napoleon Bonaparte
went to Egypt to become the French Consul. In
1894 Ernesto Schiaparelli became the director of
the Museo Egizio. Schiaparelli went to Egypt to
acquire further antiquities and was excavating at
Deir el-Medina between 1905 and 1909, where he
undertook the first scientific excavation of the
site. In the 1906 season Schiaparelli employed
more than 500 workers at the site. The northern
side of the valley was explored to virgin ground.
The most spectacular of the many finds was the
intact 18th dynasty tomb of the architect Kha and
his wife Meryt.
Tomb of Pashedu at Deir el-Medina
Photography © Soloegipto


b/w and color plates (nine folding), bio/chron., color pict. d.j.
SPECTACULAR work, reproduces more that 200 of Kahlo's paintings from every genre, including landscape and still life as well as the self-portraits, but also shows how the drama of her life formed her work. Includes a number of rarely seen paintings from private collections. Throughout photographs of Kahlo's life -from childhood photos to portraits of the artist near the end of her life. The paintings, including the most seminal works are shown in stunningly lavish reproduction. Strong essays by art historians and Diego Rivera illuminate her work. Includes brief biography. BASIC REFERENCE.


For nearly two decades Raymond Horton has served as an indispensable nuisance for successive mayors, governors, lawmakers and labor leaders in New York State. That was not his official title, of course. Mr. Horton's job has been president of the Citizens Budget Commission and author of countless critiques of New York City and state budget practices. He retires Monday after a career of angering more people for more of the right reasons for longer than almost anyone else in the city.
Only this year, New York City officials attempted to get corporate donors to withdraw support from the Budget Commission, which under Mr. Horton had the audacity to question the city's fiscal practices and labor agreements. The commission then held one of its most successful fund-raisers ever. That is because outsiders have come to depend on its analyses, and elected officials, whether they realize it or not, have been able to use Mr. Horton's suggestions to push for better policies.
Mr. Horton has been more than a number cruncher. He rejects the idea that budget gaps need to be closed by cuts in welfare, aid to the poor or vital city services. Instead he and the commission have shown how savings can be made by improving productivity, work rules and sloppy management practices. Above all, Mr. Horton and the commission have played a major role in making the city's budget practices more open than those of most governments. Mr. Horton returns to writing and teaching at the Columbia School of Business. New Yorkers will miss him.


text:
Teza Duhema-Quine'a – koncepcja znana w filozofii nauki dotycząca zależności pomiędzy danymi empirycznymi a teorią naukową. Według tezy Duhema-Quine'a dane empiryczne nie określają jednoznacznie teorii naukowej. Zbiór wszystkich danych doświadczalnych jest skończony, a więc do takiego zbioru można zawsze (przynajmniej potencjalnie) dopasować nieskończenie wiele różnych teorii. Laudan precyzuje tezę Duhema-Quine'a w następujący sposób:

Dla dowolnej teorii T i dowolnego zbioru dowodów S potwierdzających teorie T istnieje konkurencyjna dla teorii T (i sprzeczna z teorią T) teoria T' taka że zbiór dowodów S potwierdza teorie T'.

Termin w szczególności obejmuje koncepcje, że obserwacje empiryczne zawsze są obciążone dodatkowymi założeniami teoretycznymi. Z tego powodu treść empiryczna przysługuje całym systemom zdań, całej teorii lub nawet całej nauce, a nie poszczególnym jej elementom w postaci konkretnych zdań obserwacyjnych.

Przykład

W XVII wieku, w czasach Galileusza jednym z argumentów przeciwko teorii heliocentrycznej był tzw. "argument wieży". Obserwacje wskazują, że ciała spadając z dużej wysokości poruszają się w kierunku ziemi po linii prostej i prostopadle do podłoża co uważano za bezsporny empiryczny dowód, że Ziemia pozostaje w spoczynku (gdyby podlegała ruchowi to przedmioty zrzucane z wierzchołka wieży nie spadałyby idealnie u jej podnóża). Takie obserwacje nie są obecnie akceptowane jako empiryczne dowody, że Ziemia się nie porusza, ponieważ zmieniły się założenia: wprowadzone zostały dodatkowe reguły teoretyczne takie jak zasada bezwładności i względna interpretacja ruchu (patrz też: siła Coriolisa).

Zobacz też
 Empiryzm
 Problem indukcji

Przypisy

Bibliografia

Filozofia nauki


There's been a lot of talk on Capital Hill lately about saving ourselves from the slippery slope of increasing debt. No one answer will solve all of our economic woes, but some solutions don't won't a cent.
The State Energy Efficiency Action Network is one of them. The network, created by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), is meant to help states achieve maximum cost effective energy efficiency improvements in homes, offices, buildings and industry by 2020, according to a recent announcement.
"The State Energy Efficiency Action Network will help provide states with the technical and policy support they need to invest in energy efficiency, saving energy and money for families and businesses across the country," Energy Secretary Steven Chu stated in a press release.
Through the network, DOE, EPA and other member organizations will assist states with their energy efficiency initiatives, including residential efficiency programs, financing solutions, and improving availability of energy usage information. According to the press release, the network will drive energy efficiency by using a broad set of goals developed in the National Action Plan for Energy Efficiency and strive to reach these goals five years earlier than originally envisioned. These goals range from establishing state-of-the art billing systems that provide consumers with consistent information on their energy use and costs to developing strong state policies to ensure robust energy efficiency practices.
This is a refreshing, yet simple way to spur dialogue among all levels of government and result in idea sharing and problem solving in one collaborative space. It could also become a place for ideas to acquire sea legs and become more widely distributed.
The new SEE Action Executive Group will meet for the first time in early March. A number of working groups will continue to meet throughout the year to deliver results on specific goals.
I look forward to seeing the results that come out of these meetings and hope to help businesses work with the government to implement them at the state and local level.


text:
Using art "as a positive touch-point" to inspire action and behavioural change, MELTDOWN is the latest museum exhibit tackling climate change. Curated by Project Pressure, a climate change charity, it will be on display for the summer at The Natural History Museum in Vienna.
Shroud-1 2018 by Simon Norfolk & Klaus Thymann/ Project Pressure via The Guardian
Over the last 11 years, Project Pressure has commissioned a series of world-renowned artists to conduct expeditions around the world. Centred on glaciers, the artists collaborated with scientists to frame their findings and creative interpretations. As key indicators of climate change, glaciers drive the narrative of the exhibit. Each interpretation frames the narrative in a scientific, illustrative, and poetic way while visualizing scale "from the planetary level to microscopic biological impact".
Broken down into three chapters, the exhibit begins by thematically exploring the importance of glaciers. It showcases "year-on-year comparative images" to "illustrate glacier mass loss and the impact of climate change," according to the curatorial statement. The second chapter tackles current issues by highlighting human dependence on water and how glacier recession impacts nation borders. The final chapter explores meltdown consequences by exploring well-known facts in juxtaposition with visualizations of the consequences of climate change.
Mount Baker, US, 2014 by Peter Funch/Project Pressure via The Guardian
The mission of the exhibit and of Project Pressure in general, is to "incite real behavioural change". Visitors can calculate their carbon footprint, explore the carbon-intensity of their lifestyles, and receive recommendations for improvements for their home, diet, energy use, and transportation habits, among others.
Visit Project Meltdown's Instagram to see more images.
The Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History just reopened their newly renovated 31,000…
Blame and shame are often used to polarize voters and keep us from acting on climate…
Christiana Figueres, former United Nations climate chief and a central architect behind COP 21,…


text:
class SmellDefinition(object):
    def __init__(self):
        self.id = None
        self.definition = ""
        self.ref = ""
        self.ref_obj = None

    def __repr__(self):
        return repr((self.id, self.definition, self.ref,
                    self.ref_obj))

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaGithub


The main feature is a beautifully crafted aerial cinematography piece; combining iconic London landmarks and a beautiful timelapse of the sun rising to show the city waking up.
The second is a "making-of" video; telling the story of its creation including the technicalities, the legalites and the creative process behind drone filming.
With the increase in affordability and use of drones in all kinds of filmmaking, we thought we'd share with you keen filmmakers our 5 tips on the pitfalls and prizes of editing a drone film – what to look out for; the best workflow, and how the devil is in the detail.
Digital Snowball oversaw all of the post-production from editing through to grading and sound design, as well as shooting the outdoor "Making-of" scenes. Alan Stockdale of Foundlight Productions composed the score for the drone film, and Al Livingstone of Blackbee films shot the aerial footage on their DJI Inspire 1 4K drone.
4K can give you an unrivalled crispness of image, but its higher resolution (aprox 1080P) means noise is amplified 4x as much, and unless all conditions and mechanics are perfect for the shoot, you can be dealing with pixels big enough for q-bert to jump around on.
Filming at night / early morning during our Seen Before Sunrise shoot meant our environment was dark, and our subject matter and landscapes varied from shoot to shoot, as did the amount of light we had to play with.
Blackbee Films were using the DJI Inspire 1 with the X5 f/2.8 35mm equivalent and f/2.8 90mm equivalent Olympus lenses. With its Micro Four Thirds sensor its an ideal size for a camera mounted on a gimble, flying 150m above the city, but neither the lenses at f/2.8 perform great in low light. There are scenes in the film that retain their sharpness thanks to a well-lit foreground, but there are sweeping panoramic shots that struggle with the lack of light. Subsequently, when it came to the edit there was a lot of de-noising required (more on that later).
So, if you're going to shoot your city at night, make sure you pack a lens around the f/1.8 mark.
We did the whole edit in Adobe Premiere Pro CC15, which works well with multiple file formats and codecs. On the SBS project we were working with native 4K H264 from the Inspire 1; 200mb/s H264 from the Panasonic GH4; and .MXF files served up with the FS7's XAVC file structure. Whilst Premiere Pro can handle all these formats in principle, we often find that H264 footage tends to play with lag, especially at 4K. So we used ProresLT proxies for the 4k drone footage, editing in a prores sequence, and then re-linking to the original media once the edit was locked in. It was a bit of a cumbersome workflow creating all the proxies (and re-arranging into their original sub folders so that re-linking would be straight-forward), but once you've set that stage up early on, it will save you heaps of time later in the edit.
So if you've shot in 4K H264, give yourself enough time to convert your proxies to prores. And also make sure you think about your re-linking file structure and directory paths – they need to match! Do this early on in post and you'll save yourself a whole lot of headaches over yellow render bars.
This kind of follows on from tip 2, and is quite a subjective point. We use Premiere Pro on the one hand because it can juggle multiple codecs and formats, but equally as important is the dynamic link functionality built into Premiere Pro. It doesn't really matter what NLE you use, so long as the workflow works for you.
Because we were working with a couple of static timelapse shots from a skyscraper, we needed to give it the same dynamic feel that the drone footage had. So bringing it into After Effects allowed us to mask off certain things in the foreground and Ken Burns them with a bit of a parallax effect. This gave us the effect of a drone timelapse shot (have a look at The Gherkin in the time lapse shot in Seen before Sunrise), and this was made infinitely easier by the dynamic link between Premiere Pro and After Effects.
Ultimately each NLE is going to have pros and cons, and you will inevitably be more familiar with one workflow than another. So with NLEs its just worth thinking about how you can save time when you're on a client project, and Adobe's dynamic link is a massive time saver, be it for compositing shots in After Effects or for your titling.
For this tip I have lumped VFX, grading and stabilizing into one category: "Treatment". Generally speaking a treatment is something you develop in the pre-production or even the pitch stage, but for the sake of the post-production process, it shall refer to anything done in terms of treating the image.
As mentioned earlier, 4K resolution brings with it a lot of detail, but also a lot of detailed noise. In the early hours of the morning, if you're not using the right lenses, you will get a lot of noisy shadows and mid-tones in your footage. To tackle the noise problem we used Neat Video's noise reduction plug-in. It's incredibly adept at reducing noise in specific parts of the frame (specified by the user) without affecting the rest of the picture. It works really well for uniform areas like the sky and dark shadows, but is of no use on texture-heavy areas like buildings and streets.
Neat Video's plugin is a great resource to have at your disposal, because you can't always see how noisy a shot is on a drone camera display screen, but you can in the edit.
Warp stabilizer can save you from a subtle shake, but it won't make your handheld monstrosity look like a Jean-Pierre Jeunet jib shot – so use it wisely.
you can often rely on warp stabilizer to give you a smoother looking shot.
Grading isn't exclusive to a drone project, but its worth covering off how it was integral to the project of showing a sunrise in London.
First of all, London is synonymous with cloud, and the sun just doesn't shine all that often in the depths of February. So a large part of the grading involved amplifying the few real sun shots we had, as well as getting rid of that grey hue that surrounds London on those cloudy mornings. We used Magic Bullet's Colorista III, pulling out the yellows and reds in those sun shots with the Walkie Talkie, and the timelpase shot of The Gherkin.
We used the grey hue of the morning to give us our early morning transitions shots. Crushing the greys and adding a dark blue hue gave the perfect colour temperature for the shots featuring our runners and yoga-ists. Dark enough to suggest it's early morning, but still light enough to appreciate textures, shapes and St. Paul's Cathedral. Colorista gives you so much control over your image, and you can really push it without creating any noise, so it's worth investing in this little gem for your tool-kit.
Finally, it's also worth mentioning that to give the highlights a glow, and amplify the shimmer and streaks in the street and building lights we used Red Giant's Starglow plug-in. A lot can be won and lost on those subtle details, and the things that often go unnoticed are the same things that give your image more depth and texture. Plug-ins like Starglow and Colorista really are useful tools for pushing your image that bit further, and keeping your audience (and client) captivated.
The workflow we decided on as a production team was to shoot everything in 4K and then deliver the films in 1080p. This would enable us to punch in on the 4K footage, and rescale and reposition landmarks on the horizon to sit in the viewer's eye line.
So the devil really is in the detail with editing 4K landscape drone footage. Not only do you need to choose the right shots, but you almost need to re-shoot the take once you have an area of interest within a specific shot. By scaling in you can isolate any points of interest, and by using time remapping you can stretch or shorten the drone's natural movements. Most of our shots were long 30sec+ takes, which we ended up remapping and stabilizing to give us the right elevation, speed and visual impact to tell the story.
So remember to take your time when watching the rushes, because you can tell a multitude of different stories just by punching in on your image. And because drone footage is often very smooth and very long takes, you can experiment with the rather untraditional practice of time remapping footage.
So those are our 5 tips for you future drone filmmakers and editors. It's by no means a blueprint, just a useful guide to help you hone your drone skills.


text:
Q: Why is the coefficient of determination ($R^2$) so called? I have a very hard time remembering terms if I don't at least have some idea of their etymology or what other concepts in the field they relate to.
"Determination" doesn't seem to have any meaning outside of "coefficient of determination", contrary to say the "coefficient of correlation", where correlation is something well-defined in of itself. Why was this specific word chosen for $R^2$?

A: This Google search turns up an interesting result.
What follows is my speculation.
A deterministic model is a "Mathematical model in which outcomes are precisely determined through known relationships among states and events, without any room for random variation." From: What is a deterministic model?
I think the coefficient of determination can be thought of in terms of what is determined/known (without variation) about a model. If $R^2 = 1.00$, then 100% of the relation between the predictors and the outcome is determined. If you put in values for your predictors, you always get a prediction with no error term. You know the outcome with no room for error, or variation of any type. Your model becomes akin to $2 + 3 = 5$.
Typically, you do not have 100% $R^2$, so even though we obtain the same predicted value for two cases with the same values on our predictors, there is some error. So the correct predictions for both cases remain unknown and the correct predictions are probably different. But these correct predictions are determined (or we know them) to some extent - the extent of the $R^2$.

A: Here are my 2 cents.
The variance that our model consists of is of 2 types: stochastic (totally probabilistic that may vary according to the sample we select) whereas there will be variance that can be quantified or determined possibly by our modelling techniques. Now as our calculation deals with understanding the value of R^2 which explains how much deterministic variance is explained through our model, it is rightly called so.
Just a hypothesis.

redpajama_set_name: RedPajamaStackExchange


Oh what a little darlin, bet ya he nurses off a brake bleeder valve.
You are a little sick.
How did you get this past the sensors?
I thought a little different, but worth a chuckle.
Oh those VeeDub guys are a silly lot!
how old are they when they finally develop their little white walls?