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'The Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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 RE: 'And the Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to estebanana)
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For years I was aware of "The Flamencos of Cadiz Bay," without realizing it was an account of the English author's friendship with the great cantaor Aurelio Selles. When I finally got around to reading it last year i really enjoyed it and learned a lot.
I haven't read Hecht's book, but I have put it on my list, thanks to you.
My father-in-law lived in Tampico from about age five until age 14. His father was a building contractor who built much of the port facilities for the big international oil companies, before Cárdenas nationalized the oil industry.
My father-in-law's mother had been a school teacher, then a high school principal before she married, but had to give up teaching, because female school teachers were required to be single in those days. I never knew her, but by all accounts she was an educated, intelligent and formidable woman. But she wanted nothing to do with Mexico, and was said never to have pronounced a single word of Spanish.
All the house servants had to be proficient enough in English to take directions from the lady of the house. My father-in-law, Edwin Duncan A., was her main interface with the outside world in Tampico, since his father Frank was heavily involved in business during business hours.
Eddie spoke idiomatic, educated Mexican Spanish. He loved Mexico and Mexican culture. But he was an old school white southerner through and through. He didn't want his daughter marrying a rich Mexican, never mind that he was honest, charming and they were madly in love.
Speaking of Cadiz, Arturo Perez Reverte's "El Asedio [The Siege]" is one of his best novels among the many good ones I have read, about the siege of Cadiz during the Napoleonic wars. Perez presents detailed pictures of characters from a wide range of social classes on both sides of the conflict. The plot is a gaditano police detective beginning to suspect there is a traitor who is providing info to the French artillery commander across the bay in Puerto Real, then searching for him. The French guns can barely reach Cadiz, but with the characteristic technical sophistication of Napoleon's artillery, the commander is gradually extending his range and improving his accuracy.
The British fleet controls the Atlantic approaches to Cadiz, so trading continues despite the siege. A significant part of this trade is carried on by a woman who has inherited one of the larger family firms. Of course there is a hard-bitten but handsome and principled sea captain, who is provided a ship and employed as a privateer by the woman trader, and some heroic peasants from La Isla.
A friend has the English translation, and assures me it is well done. Some of Perez's other books have been translated into a variety of languages. I would be surprised if "El Asedio [The Siege]" had not been.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 19 2016 3:49:09
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: 'And the Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to Richard Jernigan)
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quote:
Speaking of Cadiz, Arturo Perez Reverte's "El Asedio [The Siege]" is one of his best novels among the many good ones I have read, about the siege of Cadiz during the Napoleonic wars. Perez presents detailed pictures of characters from a wide range of social classes on both sides of the conflict. The plot is a gaditano police detective beginning to suspect there is a traitor who is providing info to the French artillery commander across the bay in Puerto Real, then searching for him. The French guns can barely reach Cadiz, but with the characteristic technical sophistication of Napoleon's artillery, the commander is gradually extending his range and improving his accuracy. The British fleet controls the Atlantic approaches to Cadiz, so trading continues despite the siege. A significant part of this trade is carried on by a woman who has inherited one of the larger family firms. Of course there is a hard-bitten but handsome and principled sea captain, who is provided a ship and employed as a privateer by the woman trader, and some heroic peasants from La Isla.
I'm glad to see you, too, are fans of Arturo Perez-Reverte, Richard and Stephen. You may recall I recommended "The Siege" as a good read back in November 2014 on the Foro. I have repeated my review and recommendation here. As I have noted, I think Perez-Reverte bears some resemblance to Jorge Luis Borges, and particularly so in "The Siege."
"Speaking of Cadiz, I would like to recommend a novel by the Spanish author Arturo Perez-Reverte entitled "The Siege." The siege in question is a historical fact that occurred in 1811 when French forces laid siege to Cadiz during the Peninsular War, which was a sideshow in the greater effort by Napolean to conquer Europe. It provides the backdrop for a murder mystery. Several women are murdered in Cadiz during the siege, and although they at first appear to be random, police comisario Rogelio Tizon notices a pattern. In the quest for answers Cadiz becomes a giant chessboard.
"This novel bears some resemblance to the short story by Jorge Luis Borges entitled "Death and the Compass." In Borges' story, a city (patterned after Buenos Aires) experiences several murders that fall into a pattern, both in terms of the dates they are committed and that they each have a note beside the victim that states, "The first letter of the Name has been uttered," The second letter of the Name has been uttered," etc. The inspector determines he is dealing with the Tetragrammaton and employs Kabbalistic references to determine how to find the murderer.
"Both Perez-Reverte and Borges are first-rate authors of mystery (and mysterious!) thrillers. Borges is the more imaginative, but Perez-Reverte is very good, too."
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 19 2016 15:33:04
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: 'And the Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
I like Perez Reverte's 'Seville Communion' I'm sure I would like the one you mention. He is like a Spanish Dan Brown, but with more historical focus. Seville Communion is like the Da Vinci Code, which I say I am guilty of reading, but with more sophistication. I'm not a mystery snob, a good page turner is good for me.
In my library I have (in hardback) most of Perez-Reverte's novels: "The Seville Communion," "The Fencing Master," "The Nautical Chart," "The Flanders Panel," "The Queen of the South," "The Siege,"etc. All good, some better than others, but none dull. If you have a few you haven't read yet, you are in for a treat. Space them out so you can savor each one.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 19 2016 16:23:09
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: 'And the Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to El Frijolito)
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quote:
Although not part of the topic, I have never considered Borges a mystery writer
I meant the term in its broadest sense, not in the usual genre we associate it with. For entertaining and thought-provoking reading, nothing beats the short stories of Jorge Luis Borges. His stories, which center on appearance vs. reality, the doppelganger, mirrors, labyrinths, infinite libraries, alephs, as well as gauchos and knifefighters, are a real treat. He is a master of inserting arcana and a sense of mystery into his stories that reflect his broad and deep knowledge of everything from the Kabbala to the Phenomenology of Edmund Husserl (the nature of reality). And, yes, his short story "Death and the Compass," mentioned above, is a mystery, albeit one with the Borges touch. I re-read Borges's stories about every six or seven years and enjoy them as much as I did the first time, many years ago. If I had one book to take with me alone on a desert island, it would be the collected stories of Jorge Luis Borges.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 21 2016 15:48:58
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El Frijolito
Posts: 131
Joined: Feb. 27 2016
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RE: 'And the Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to BarkellWH)
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Bill, that was an excellent emendation of your earlier comment.
Much of what you say about Borges, we agree on, although I might prefer the terms metaphysical mystery or metafiction to mystery. As you are no doubt aware, Borges wrote in a number of genres and was a fine essayist and poet, among other things. I have personally been fond of his parodical investigations of art and literary criticism - "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quijote" is a popularly known example.
I first encountered Borges through a copy of "Labyrinths" given to me by family friends a few decades ago - it was something of a revelation and led me to attempt translating some of his poems. Somewhat later I found a copy of the 'Chronicles of Bustos Domecq,' the essays of which loosely fall into the same category as "Pierre Menard" - in my mind, anyway. I have from that time forward retained an interest in Borges, and a fair amount of curiosity about his fellow writers (frequently dedicatees of his work - e.g. Clarice Lispector and Adolfo Bioy Casares - whose work used to be very hard to come by).
I seem to recall, every now and again, being reminded of Borges in some of the work of G.K. Chesterton (The Man Who Was Thursday in particular), who is popularly considered a mystery writer.
As much as I've enjoyed Borges' fictions over the years, I would probably select instead Sterne's Tristram Shandy as my desert island book - although I note that it has been considered an early example of metafiction- being, as it is, a novel about the writing of a novel, which never gets written- so in a sense those aesthetic leanings of mine that were honed on Borges are still at play, somewhere.
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Date Mar. 21 2016 18:51:37
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: 'And the Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to El Frijolito)
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In 1961 Borges was appointed for a year to a chair at the University of Texas at Austin. He said he was particularly interested in Texas as a center for the study of Old English, Old Norse and other archaic Germanic languages.
His lectures on English and Spanish literature became famous and attracted standing-room-only crowds.
Borges was by then completely blind. He would enter the classroom on the arm of a graduate student and seat himself at a desk. He seemed to look upward, but those close enough could clearly see that his eyes no longer functioned.
He would begin to speak in a deep and melodious voice, and continue for 50 minutes, always finishing just a few seconds before the bell signaling the end of the class period.
His speech was unique in my experience. Though in clear and articulate English, it embodied the rhetoric taught in Latin countries since at least the time of Cicero. You could hear the indentations of paragraphs, the commas and semicolons that bounded dependent clauses. You could almost see the talk composed on the page as he spoke.
The preamble, the precis of topics to be covered, the introduction of each topic, its exposition and analysis, the summation and peroration were all marked by modulations of loudness, tone and pitch.
The last words of the coda were always followed by enthusiastic applause, as he rose, smiled benignly, and was escorted from the room.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 21 2016 23:39:12
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: 'The Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to estebanana)
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Borges is hard to pin into a category or slot. He's sui generis, but if I had to cast him somewhere I would go with a something like late literary surrealism.
Although that connects him to a group he is part of and not part of at the same time.
If I had to pick a visual artist to explain Borges I would pick Matta the Chilean painter, and Borges to explain Matta. Neither of them is really explainable, but Matta's half this half that spaces and implied creatures correlate well with Borges' maps made of words. And his maps are as big as the territory they describe, like a copy of a dimensional plane that does not really exist. Borges can draw you a map to allow navigation. He is geographer and cartographer of space-time that has yet to be invented, or did not happen in the past.
Writers watch history unfold in one way, the real way, and then use fragments of it to recompose a story line and an alternate history. Borges is no exception, but what sets him apart is that the cosmos is his palette of history. He brings more fragments together than most writers can muster themselves to handle, and he pastes them into charts that describe cosmologic waterways, with eddy's, whirlpools and quicksands.
See I can write bladdy blah blah as well as anyone.
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https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Mar. 22 2016 11:25:28
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: 'And the Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to El Frijolito)
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There are two literary giants of the twentieth century who many think should have won the Nobel Prize for literature but did not: Jorge Luis Borges and Graham Greene. Without going into the politics and philosophical stance of each (If you have read the political statements and the works of both, you will know what I mean anyway.), the consensus seems to be that Borges was too conservative and Greene was too leftist for the Nobel committee's taste.
I'm not sure I buy that. Borges clearly was a conservative on the political spectrum (especially within the Latin American context) and Greene was clearly on the left. Looking at the history of the Nobel Prize for literature, the committee has chosen authors of a leftist persuasion in the past, although I cannot think of any chosen who were considered conservative. Whatever the reason the Nobel Committee passed on them, I count myself as among those who think both Borges and Greene should have won the Nobel Prize for literature.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 22 2016 15:43:52
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: 'The Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to estebanana)
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The Steve Martin picture is the best one you've posted.
I never follow the Nobels, the IgNobels are so much better.
The off topic was shut down because we were wildly off topic, if it gets started up again I will begin a new topic when I want to veer into Zero crash sites talk.
I was really interested in reading this book again to see if it gives up some other reading now that I have not seen it in 18 years. My initial idea was about how our perception of a book changes as we get older and gain other knowledge about the subject. I'm curious if this book will turn new insights into flamenco I missed the first tie around, or if it will turn into a book that happens to be about flamenco, but will read like a well written memoir, but leave me unsatisfied with the flamenco content.
Either way I'll have a look at it again, both views are valuable to me; today I realized my interest is equally about the flamenco content as much as the idea of a foreigner encountering or being swallowed by a different culture. I recollect more about the way Hecht, molded himself to fit into a culture he was not from. The "flamenco journey" is almost a genre today, certainly a sub-genre of culture immersion memoir stories. Everyone has a flamenco book to write it seems. Which is a Borgesian concept, right? Every wanderer that goes into flamenco has a story, and each one is different. What was the famous 1960's movie that begins with the helicopter shot of NYC and the narrator saying"... there are a million stories in the naked city" ?
....or something like that. Out of all those stories what makes one worth telling? Is it that every story is good if told well, or some stories are just better lives lived?
_______________________
The painter who paints about the nature of painting is Rene Magritte. His pictures are like nesting dolls where one metaphor fits inside another like a suitcase holding a suitcase.
These pictures are Roberto Matta and since we are strong on Borges talk, its not to off topic to show images that evoke for me Borges' state of mind and stories.
Images are resized automatically to a maximum width of 800px
 Attachment (3)
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Mar. 24 2016 0:39:23
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El Frijolito
Posts: 131
Joined: Feb. 27 2016
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RE: 'The Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
I was really interested in reading this book again to see if it gives up some other reading now that I have not seen it in 18 years. My initial idea was about how our perception of a book changes as we get older and gain other knowledge about the subject. I'm curious if this book will turn new insights into flamenco I missed the first tie around, or if it will turn into a book that happens to be about flamenco, but will read like a well written memoir, but leave me unsatisfied with the flamenco content.
Either way I'll have a look at it again, both views are valuable to me; today I realized my interest is equally about the flamenco content as much as the idea of a foreigner encountering or being swallowed by a different culture. I recollect more about the way Hecht, molded himself to fit into a culture he was not from. The "flamenco journey" is almost a genre today, certainly a sub-genre of culture immersion memoir stories.
Yes, hence my first reply. My recollection of the book, though, is older by over a decade, so probably less substantive. "The foreigner confronting (another) culture" concept in memoir writing managed to sell many books for foreigners in Japan. Actually I've been corresponding with a friend who was recently urged to write something similar with respect to China.
quote:
Everyone has a flamenco book to write it seems. Which is a Borgesian concept, right? Every wanderer that goes into flamenco has a story, and each one is different. What was the famous 1960's movie that begins with the helicopter shot of NYC and the narrator saying"... there are a million stories in the naked city" ?
Less Borgesian than O. Henry, I think, although Porter would only have allocated about four pages to each, plus a surprise ending. Porter wrote a collection of stories called "The Four Million" - the title was a repudiation of a claim that there were only about four hundred people in New York City that were worth noticing. By the time of "The Naked City" (Jules Dassin, 1948), that became the concluding narration, "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them." This later got lifted for the TV series.
Borges would more plausibly have written a short essay about a flamenco memoir that had not been written, as a means of short-circuiting the necessity of writing a flamenco memoir in the first place. Or even more likely, he would have written an essay about a writer who was seeking to reproduce Paul Hecht's The Wind Cried word-for-word, but without having lived Paul Hecht's experiences in Spain.
quote:
The Steve Martin picture is the best one you've posted.
Steve Martin? That's my driver's license photo.
I rather like my "To Serve Man" series, myself. But as Steve (and possibly Borges) might say, "à chacun son goût."
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Date Mar. 24 2016 2:07:12
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Richard Jernigan
Posts: 3430
Joined: Jan. 20 2004
From: Austin, Texas USA
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RE: 'The Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to El Frijolito)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: El Frijolito
Yes, hence my first reply. My recollection of the book, though, is older by over a decade, so probably less substantive. "The foreigner confronting (another) culture" concept in memoir writing managed to sell many books for foreigners in Japan. Actually I've been corresponding with a friend who was recently urged to write something similar with respect to China.
quote:
Everyone has a flamenco book to write it seems. Which is a Borgesian concept, right? Every wanderer that goes into flamenco has a story, and each one is different. What was the famous 1960's movie that begins with the helicopter shot of NYC and the narrator saying"... there are a million stories in the naked city" ?
Less Borgesian than O. Henry, I think, although Porter would only have allocated about four pages to each, plus a surprise ending. Porter wrote a collection of stories called "The Four Million" - the title was a repudiation of a claim that there were only about four hundred people in New York City that were worth noticing. By the time of "The Naked City" (Jules Dassin, 1948), that became the concluding narration, "There are eight million stories in the naked city. This has been one of them." This later got lifted for the TV series.
Borges would more plausibly have written a short essay about a flamenco memoir that had not been written, as a means of short-circuiting the necessity of writing a flamenco memoir in the first place. Or even more likely, he would have written an essay about a writer who was seeking to reproduce Paul Hecht's The Wind Cried word-for-word, but without having lived Paul Hecht's experiences in Spain.
quote:
The Steve Martin picture is the best one you've posted.
Steve Martin? That's my driver's license photo.
I rather like my "To Serve Man" series, myself. But as Steve (and possibly Borges) might say, "à chacun son goût."
quote:
Armistead Maupin, Tales of the City:
“I think you’re on your own tonight, Peter.”
“Chacun à son goût [sic]. Personally, I’m sick of these pseudo-patricians. I’m ready for a few pseudo-lumberjacks.”
"The Wind Cried" arrived in the mail today. Amazon was sold out, got it from Dan Zeff Guitars. I read the first chapter. Too soon to comment.
RNJ
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Date Mar. 24 2016 4:21:47
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BarkellWH
Posts: 3458
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
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RE: 'The Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to estebanana)
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quote:
The off topic was shut down because we were wildly off topic, if it gets started up again I will begin a new topic when I want to veer into Zero crash sites talk.
I do hope the Off-Topic category is revived soon. It was shut down just after I had posted my experiences finding Zero crash sites in Yap and Peleliu, and the discussion was just beginning to get interesting with Richard's and your contributions. If and when the "Off-Topic" category is revived, we must stick to the topic introduced in "Off-Topic" threads, and as you suggest, we must begin a new thread if we want to change the subject/topic.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white,
With the name of the late deceased,
And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here,
Who tried to hustle the East."
--Rudyard Kipling
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Date Mar. 24 2016 15:53:53
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estebanana
Posts: 9351
Joined: Oct. 16 2009
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RE: 'The Wind Cried' by Paul Hecht (in reply to El Frijolito)
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quote:
quote:
This a text book example of an art student yammering on in class about how they are making art work that is based in the writing of Jean Baudrillard, while everyone else in the room is either nodding off or their eyeballs are rolling back in their head sockets.
...and that's a classic example of a certain individual's characteristic politeness and diplomacy. But we knew that.
The Off Topic section was shut down is because of the acrimony. You keep pushing your political innuendo into the threads and it is disruptive and provocative. This does not help keep things cool around here. We already have a political junkie on the far left and we don't need someone insinuating right wing political speak into the mix. It spoils the mood.
I'm talking about you bringing up how much you loathe Hillary Clinton, fine, but here, not now. It is too hot and causes problems.
Bringing up Al Gore vis a vis Democrats who are not in a position to judge scienece. That is a two way street, provocative, and unneeded in the middle of a thread about Spanish Gastronomy.
You don't like that Obama was given a Nobel prize. Then get elected to the committee that hands out the prize. Don't troll that here on my thread. Don't wave that in front of me as a off handed remark and then expect me to be all sweet and lovey dovey.
Begin a conversation about your politics a have it out the same way our resident political headliners does, but stop dragging that crap through flamenco threads. THIS FORO IS NOT ABOUT POLITICS, begin a separate thread if you have political axes to grind, Ruphus does this with great clarity. he keeps his views in the correct threads and this is why he can participate on the Foro. If politics comes up somehow you will observe that most members try to down play that aspect of the talk and people here don't throw in partisan political jabs as regular feature of their posts.
Judging me for not being diplomatic while you insert these veiled political jabs everywhere? And these nonsense B and W photos amazon book covers what is this? This is about a book about Spanish culture and you bring obscure references and political undertones. You test my knowledge about art, but never speak back into it....yeah I'm bored and frankly rude.
_____________________________
https://www.stephenfaulkguitars.com
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Date Mar. 24 2016 23:19:01
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