Two suggestions

It's been a while since I don't write about music. Here's a quick post on two terrific albums you should definitely hear. Along with this album, they are among the best of 2008, without a doubt.

The first one is The Verve's Forth. It is simply splendid to see The Verve back again doing great songs. I have found many people who don't know much about them apart from the everlasting Bitter Sweet Symphony. That's a real shame. Forth features ten excellent songs. My favorites are Rather Be (a classic for sure), I See Houses, Columbo, and perhaps the most amazing song I have heard in years: Appalachian Springs. Here's the video:



I tend to create links between albums/songs and the situations I am living. I first discovered Forth while in Denmark, and now that I listen again some of its songs, I can't help thinking in Copenhagen and the great summer that now it's gone. A similar thing occurs to me when listening Elbow's The Seldom Seen Kid, my second suggestion for you. I started listening that album while in Rome's airport, waiting for my flight to Poland. Then during my week in Warsow I listened it a lot and  managed to appreciate it very much. Now it reminds me of my flight back to Bologna, and of a certain nostalgic feeling for Warsow.

I have to admit that I decided to listening Elbow only once they won the Mercury prize. I guess lots of people did the same and were nicely surprised with this record. This is not an easy album: do not wait for catchy songs or conventional melodies. Lyrics are excellent. It takes a while to get used to the music. At the end, in my experience, you'll end up enjoying it. My favorite song (so far) is Mirrorball. Here's the video:

Another rather decent album you'll like to hear is Dig Out Your Soul by Oasis. It is enjoyable but it's definitely not as good as the two above. 

Capsule of Absurdity No. 3

Imagine yourself, lost in the middle of nowhere, with a flight to catch and with an incompetent French bus driver that doesn't know how to take you to the airport.

In this post I offer you une capsule d'absurdité. As I mentioned at the end of this capsule, here I will describe some events related to a strike day in Paris.

Strikes (grèves in French, scioperi in Italian, huelgas in Spanish) seem to be a sign of developed societies. They're one of the expressions of the liberty working classes have to complain and fight for their rights. Unfortunately, unions and associations often misuse such a liberty to annoy the rest of the world. In Colombia there are no strikes, at least not legal ones: when people start to protest and not working, the government declares the strike as illegal. This scares most workers, and pretty much everything goes back to normal. In fact, I don't remember a single legal strike in Colombia. More common are the so-called turtle operations, in which services are offered up to some partial capacity. So, for instance, a turtle operation in a hospital might involve only providing ER attention and/or only practicing a few, randomly chosen, more delicate procedures. Even if technically turtle operations are not strikes, they're as or more annoying than fully-fledged strikes.

Here in Italy transport strikes are becoming increasingly frequent. These are rather gentle strikes: since most of them are announced in advance, they don't cause big problems provided you plan your travel schedule in advance. (Of course, there have been more problematic strikes but those are less frequent.) Indeed, recent strikes seem to be extremely gently when compared with the French transport strikes. During a recent visit to Paris (on which I commented here and here) I had the wonderful experience of a reduced train strike in Paris.

It was indeed a very reduced strike (at least when compared to those that took place when Sarkozy got into office). Paris is served by two train companies: one for the metropolitan part, and another that connects Paris with neighboring towns such as Roissy (north, where the airport is located) and Orsay (south, where I was staying). It was the second company the one that decided to go to strike the Monday in which I was supposed to return to Italy. In practical terms, that meant that instead of having a boring, very long trip from Orsay to CDG, I would have to go from Orsay to some intermediate station in Paris, take some metro line (using the company that wasn't in strike) and reach a certain station in which a train to CDG were available.

For reasons that are irrelevant now, and to keep things short, I will say that I ended up first taking the RER in Orsay until Châtelet – Les Halles; then I took the metro and arrived to the Opera. There, I took the RoissyBus (see the picture below), modern wonder that is the center of this capsule. This is a service intended to connect people in central Paris to the CDG airport. Given the strike circumstances, the RoissyBus seemed the most reasonable option to arrive to CDG in time.



I took the Roissy Bus and it quickly got out of the center of Paris. I had never reached the airport with a car or autobus, so I didn't know what the 'car entrance' to CDG would look like. Soon we were in a huge highway, and all the planes landing and taking off suggested that we were close to the CDG. All of the sudden, the bus left what it seemed to be the 'mainstream' entrances to the airport. I was surprised indeed, and looked at the faces of people around me: nobody looked worried or nervous, apart from the usual tension people in a rush have in these cases.

Soon we were inside the cargo part of the airport. We entered into some closed set of hangars and storehouses, with very narrow roads. Even if everything outside was a little strange, I was quite relaxed as I was certainly confident on the fact that we were taking a special route, carefully designed so to avoid traffic for all those who need reach CDG as soon as possible from the center. I was just behind the driver, who also acted very normal and confident.

Some minutes after, the RoissyBus stopped. The public part of the narrow road had ended: a fence separated us from some private property. The driver suddenly started to look at his GPS like crazy, and to look around. After some minutes, some radio communications between the driver and (I assume) the central control of the RoissyBuses took place. I couldn't understand what they said, but they seemed upset. We the passengers started to look to ourselves, and quickly realized our absurd reality. Our skillful driver had taken us into a very strange place, and we needed to go back to the main road.

So, we were in the middle of nowhere and needed to go back. In principle, this seems easy, but we had two main problems. One, the long, articulated bus needed to go back in an extremely narrow road, and two, we had a nervous, stupid driver. To give you an idea, imagine what is to leave a parking spot with cars in front and behind you: you have to go back and forth patiently, and repeatedly turn back, until getting enough space to turn completely to one side and go out. Our driver did precisely that, but all his effort was in vain. He obviously had never done that in his life, and the "acordeon" between the two parts of the bus was a nightmare for him, and also for us, who had no option but to observe the pathetic scene. We spent around 20 minutes in doing this: soon people inside the bus started to get anxious and to tell unrequested dramatic stories of how bad it would be to miss their flights. Argh.

At some point, the driver started to talk to some security guards nearby the fence. They had seen all the attempts of our driver and laughed. We didn't. The driver then found out that to one side of the road, there were some huge stones instead of some regular fence. That was our key to scape. The security guards stopped laughing and moved some of the stones, thus leaving some extra space for the RoissyBus to get out. It had to be done carefully, because of the 'second part' of the bus and the notorious incompetence of our driver. He did it very, very slowly.

We had been there for around half an hour and people were starting to suggest things, although not very loudly. I interpreted this lack of reaction in critical situations as another sign of developed societies, as strikes are. I was very calmed since, even with the delay, I had plenty of time. In fact, trying to anticipate any problem related to the strike, I had taken the first train from Orsay. Doing so had proven very wise, indeed.

At the end we managed to get out of the narrow road and to turn completely. I saw some unexpected expressions of joy: people were laughing, and when the whole turn back was done, my fellow passengers started to clap unanimously. I think I saw some hugging between complete strangers but I am not sure. Amazing! We went back to the main road, the driver followed the arrows he should never have ignored and we got safely to CDG. The most unlikely of the developments had arrived to a happy ending.

Now a concluding digression. The surprising clapping in the RoissyBus made quite an impression on me: in fact, clapping in public transportation means automatically brings back to me one of the most disturbing Colombian habits. Indeed, when any plane coming from abroad lands in Colombian soil, Colombians in the plane start to clap. Yes, they clap, and sometimes for several minutes! I never understood why is that, and let me tell you, I feel embarrassed when that occurs. Some people say that this is to honor the pilot. Nonsense. Perhaps my fellow Colombians just try to thank God the flight went OK, or they want express their happiness; in any case, I find it pathetic. It seems that things used to be worse in the past: I was told that there was a Colombian airline who played a fragment of the national anthem as soon as the plane landed, just before the clapping ritual.

(It has to be said that landing in Bogotá is a magnificent experience. The city is HUGE and flights from Europe usually arrive in the afternoon, so you can see very well the whole city from a privileged perspective. It is simply marvelous. You can see the landing here, and the see the landing and hear the clapping here.)

Here comes the sun

(Image taken from CNN.com)

The sun is shining today. Both metaphorically and literally. Indeed, after a few Copenhagen-like days, today the sun has returned to Bologna. The day is really splendid. There a few clouds, of course, but the fact that you can see some different perspectives can inspire you, and perhaps make your day. Also metaphorically the sun is shining today, after Barack Husein's clear victory last night. I think this is a so desired day for many people in the world; I would even dare to say that the enthusiasm outside the US is as big as it is today for more than 62 million people in the US.

Of course, just because today there's a shining sun it doesn't mean that there will be no more clouds around. After seeing both speeches last night this is even more certain. The speech by Obama was clear and inspiring, and at the same time, it was a statement of the huge challenges to come. I enjoyed the honesty in his words. But rather than digging on Obama's address, it is perhaps more insightful to pay attention to McCain's speech. I would like to comment on two particular moments.

First, when he opened his intervention mentioning Obama and the fact he had conceded him the presidency, McCain supporters started to boo Obama in several times. They interrupted McCain, who disapproved such a reaction. In my view, the face expression of McCain in that precise moment is priceless: it is a clear, authentic sign of disgust. Perhaps only in that instant, when hearing such an overwhelming negative reaction against the president-elect, John McCain realized the monster he had created by appealing to one of the most aggressive and nasty political campaigns in history.

The second moment that I find remarkable in McCain's speech is when he mentions Sarah Palin as the future driving force of the republican party. That lady certainly attracted a number of people who believe in conservative policies. The reaction to Palin's mention is almost the opposite to Obama's. Unfortunately, this campaign has put Palin in the top places of the political scenario in the US, and I am sure she will be the face behind powerful right-wing sectors interested in a new conservative agenda post-Obama.

Once again appealing to my weather metaphor, it is clearly a relief that the most influential person in the world is someone who not only can express himself properly, but that can bring inspiration to others in times of difficulty. Also, the fact that his vice-president is familiar with foreign policy issues (and that speaks his mind when he feels like doing so) is a killer combination. We should try to enjoy this sun while we can. We should also remember that even in the most splendid of the suns there are those little gray clouds that stand there. There will be always radical people like Sarah Palin that will play hard, not only against people like Barack Obama, but also against any manifestation of common sense. To conclude, let me provide a compelling example of this. According to Palin and her supporters, global warming is not man-made. I am sure that most of them would agree with Tina Fey on the fact that global warming is "just God hugging us closely".

(Almost) Everybody loves Obama

This post is tangentially related to the forthcoming US elections. I could have written a proper post on how I find this election historical and exciting, and on how hopeful I am in an eventual Obama administration. Also, I could have cited and commented on one of the many of the polls that say that the citizens of the world would elect Barack Husein as president of the USA. I could have done that indeed. Rather, here I prefer to comment on the country that is desperately wishing a McCain administration. Yes, you guessed it: that country is Colombia.

In fact: the government, the media and every semi-informed person in Colombia is convinced that a Republican in the office is the most convenient thing for Colombia. Their reasoning is rather primitive, and above all, stupid: the Colombian opinion tends to believe that a McCain administration will make effective a free-trade agreement (FTA, Tratado de Libre Comercio - TLC, in Spanish) between US and Colombia. You might ask: what's the deal with that?

Before answering let me explain a bit on the relation between US and Colombia. Colombia is important for the US as it represents the focus of the drug problem. Since the term 'war against drugs' was coined (around 30 years ago) Colombia has been understood and treated as the main producer of the drugs that are available in the US. The diplomatic and commercial relations between the two countries have been shaped accordingly. Not surprisingly, Colombia is the second largest recipient in the world of financial and military aid from the US. The most recent initiative for this ---the so-called Plan Colombia--- was approved during the Clinton administration, and maintained during Bush's. What started as a cooperation plan against drug production, slowly moved towards the direct use of US aid to combat the guerrilla. This is something that, to be honest, makes absolute sense, given the proven participation of such groups in the drug business. Naturally, the 'war against terrorism' made it easy to shift the focus of the planned aid.

So, during the last eight years or so, the relations between US and Colombia were mostly based on issues related to the Plan Colombia. There was also a minor commercial component. This is something fundamental for Colombia but certainly irrelevant for the US, as you might imagine. Up to now, there exist some small agreements that make trade somewhat flexible, but these are temporal and full of conditions. (It is worth mentioning that in the legal side, main Colombia exports to the US include flowers and coffee.) So there was a need for a more open agreement eliminating the trade barriers between the countries.

The above of course sounds logic and even necessary. The problem is that the agreement that both governments approved is simply terrible for the majority of Colombian interests. Just think in the following: once the Democrats took the majorities of the congress, they made several changes so to make the thing less unfair. One of the many problems with the agreement, in my view, is that it advocates a notion of commerce that is so wide that it is outrageous.

A couple of examples are useful at this point. One of the things the agreement regulates is the amount of hours of TV produced and aired by Colombian broadcasters. In other words, by means of the agreement, Colombian TV channels should buy and air a fixed amount of movies and TV series made in the US. This is because unregulated TV production in Colombia could potentially affect US companies (!). This is not symmetric, as you can imagine. A second example is the following: thanks to the agreement, US pharmaceutical laboratories and companies would have the right to patent native medicines and fauna and flora present in Colombia. So, for instance, if someone discovers that a certain plant is beneficial for some disease, US laboratories not only could patent that plant and the procedure to extract a medicine out of it, but also Colombia would be forced to buy them that medicine from the US (!)

In this way, the agreement covers a wide spectrum of what can be considered as commerce. Of course, there are portions of the FTA that are convenient for some components of the Colombian economy. The incipient Colombian software industry is one of them. Flower producers would get benefits as well. The position of the government is rather clear: the FTA is far from perfect, and we need it desperately for those who will get benefits of it, regardless of the fact that (i) Colombia is not ready for such an agreement (for instance, we don't have proper highways from/to main ports); (ii) many interests would be affected; (iii) we have no other big commercial partner in the world.

So, this takes us again on why the Colombian government and media really wish another Republican administration. They ignore that the Democrat majorities in the congress will prevail, even in the (hopefully unlikely) case that McCain comes into office. They must think that a scripted speech from Sarah Palin will make the FTA a reality. In fact, for more than a year Democrats have systematically delayed the study of the act enforcing the Colombian FTA, just to make George W really upset. Colombia has become part of the bipartisan discussions and tensions by accident; Nancy Pelosi is a really hated person in Colombia. They have claimed arguments related to human rights violations to justify this position (heavily supported by the Colombian opposition and many leftist Non-Governmental Organizations). The reality is that a FTA is something tremendously unpopular among Americans, specially nowadays. Obama knows this and hence opposes to the FTA, at least in the current terms. He also proposes to shift the focus of the Plan Colombia. Republicans claim that the FTA is necessary to support a 'loyal ally' in the war against terrorism, and that Plan Colombia should be maintained untouched. This is McCain's position. This topic was quickly mentioned in the third presidential debate; this short, predictable mention was largely discussed and analyzed in Colombian newspapers. The same newspapers that gave huge coverage to McCain visit to Colombia, and that only now realize that Obama perhaps could win.

To conclude, if you think that everyone in the world wants Obama as president, think twice. Apart from the neocons and creationists, a significant amount of Colombians might like to have a 72-year old war veteran as president, and a hockey-mom that sees Russia from her balcony as vice-president. Let us simply hope for the best next Tuesday.

Piazzolla and Me

I got into Astor Piazzolla's music by mistake (or, more precisely, by serendipity). It was a Saturday afternoon after a nap, that I turned the TV on and saw a rather attractive girl hitting her violin with a stick, while the rest of a symphonic orchestra was graciously playing. The scene was rather strange, but the music rapidly captivated me. Soon after that piece, the director started to explain the differences between Vivaldi's Four Seasons and Piazzolla's Estaciones Porteñas. Even if I was still sleepy, I managed to realize that the percussive rhythm of hits on the violin was only one of the many hints on how Piazzolla understood the spirit of seasons in the city of Buenos Aires.

After hearing Piazzolla's four seasons for the first time, I became an avid listener and follower of his music. I've accumulated a lot of albums of him and his bands, as well as of performances other musicians have done. I can truly say that Piazzolla's is one of the most inspiring things that have come to me. A whole range of feelings come to the outside thanks to Piazzolla compositions. His music is both catchy and profound; happy and deeply sad at the same time. The melodies are complex but somehow it feels you can relate to them very easily. Sometimes I get tired of "modern music", and then I return to any Piazzolla album and then everything makes sense again. My favorite, without a doubt, is Libertango, which I recommend to everyone.

Piazzolla lived a very passionate life. Not surprisingly, the several stages of his artistic life were intimately related to the circumstances of his personal life. Born in 1921, at the age of four, Astor and his family moved from Argentina to New York, where he grew up and lived till he was 16. It was in NY, at the age of 9, where he got into the Bandoneon, and developed a passion for it and for Tango music. In 1937 he returns to Buenos Aires, and joins the most important Tango group of his time. He managed to interact with famous performers and composers, soon detecting a sense of disgust with the traditional Tango style. In 1954 he decides to study piano in Paris, under the guidance of Nadia Boulanger, who encourages Piazzolla to follow his very own style in Tango compositions. At this point it might be useful to remark that the many cultural influences of Piazzolla (he was an Argentinian with Italian ancestors, grown up in New York and formed as pianist in France) were fundamental in creating in him a very clear sense of uniqueness in his art.

Until 1958, the life of Piazzolla was essentially devoted to develop his new style in Buenos Aires, where his new ideas were not welcomed by those radical defenders of "true Tango". In that year, he and his family (wife and two kids) go to New York to start a new life. It is in 1959, with the death of his father that one could say that the first period of Piazzolla ends. Indeed, such an event marked Astor in such a profound way, that after that his musical and personal life took a very diverse path. The sadness caused by the death of his father was Piazzolla's main inspiration to compose "Adios Nonino" (Goodbye Nonino), a sort of Tango requiem for his late father. (Astor's kids called their grandpa "nonino", a word derived from the Italian "nonno", which means "grandfather".) Adios Nonino is one of the most popular compositions of Piazzolla.

After that, Piazzolla not only starts a new artistic period, with he also starts a new life. Indeed, he left his family to pursue new artistic and personal adventures. Some say that Nonino's death suddenly removed any moral yardstick in Astor. He then starts a new relationship with a young singer, and along with Horacio Ferrer, creates "Maria de Buenos Aires", the first Tango opera. Perhaps the most famous piece of this rather positive period (both artistically and personally) for Piazzolla is "Balada para un Loco" (Ballad for a madman).

After that period, around 1975 Piazzolla forms the Electronic Octect, one of the most interesting expressions of his so-called "new tango." The group includes elements and performers from Jazz, percussions and synthesizers; these two last components being clearly unconceivable from the traditional Tango perspective. This is a rather short period (around 2 years). It is worth mentioning that in his personal life this is a sweet period, as he gets very close to his son Daniel, who is part of his band.

A third and final period is again determined by the irruption of a new woman in Astor's life. This is around 1976, where he meets and marries his second wife. They move to Paris, where he continues in his artistic and personal evolution, getting close to performers such as Richard Galliano. In fact, during this period Piazzolla continues with his musical experimentation, composes soundtracks for movies and tours around the world. In 1990 he collapses in Paris, being in coma for twenty-three months, and finally dies in Buenos Aires in 1992, leaving behind an splendid legacy to contemporary music.

It is always interesting to wonder about the lives of extremely talented people as Piazzolla. Some say he was an extremely selfish person, kind and warm in the everyday contact with family and friends. He also was a rather contradictory and inflexible person regarding social and political aspects. In fact, Piazzolla was known to sympathize with Videla's dictatorship in Argentina. In the musical aspect --the one that should interest us the most-- he was the most rigorous of the directors while being the most adventurous of the improvisers. He accepted no mistakes from his musicians, but was enthusiastic enough to take any "reasonable" contribution that would enrich the pieces.

Needless to say, discovering Piazzolla's life and music is a long yet extremely rewarding process. At the beginning, it's no easy to get a grasp of what he tries to convey with the music. It is certainly worth listening, specially nowadays when one hears all kinds of crap, supposedly called music.