Richard Jernigan -> RE: Marvi flamenco guitar review (sort of)... the other Marvi (May 21 2020 6:58:35)
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Ferreirrola, where Marvi has his shop, is not in the Sierra Nevada as Chris Kamen says in the video. It is in the Alpujarras, south of Granada. You turn east at Lanjaron off the main highway from Granada to the coast, and wind about over narrow mountain roads. Ferreirrola is literally at the end of its own little road. While in Granada several years ago I learned that a Foro member and his wife were vacationing at Ferreirrola. I rented a car at the Granada train station and drove to the village. It is a beautiful trip, even on the main road south. Out in the mountains you are in the wilderness. There was a reason I wanted to see the back country of the Alpujarras. Not strictly guitar related: At the time Marvi had a very big German Shepherd looking dog. With the couple I visited we went to the nearest village that had a restaurant for mid day comida. We drank beer, ate salad, steak and potatoes, and discussed the way of the world for a couple of hours. There was some steak left over, which the restaurant boxed up for us. The only place to park in Ferreirrola is in the little square just as you enter the town. There is only one street and a few very narrow alleys. The street descends fairly steeply from the square and passes by Marvi's shop. We could hear him working in the basement, but did not stop to disturb him. The dog was lying near a basement window. He got up to investigate us. He showed considerable interest in the boxed up steak. The woman carrying it wasn't very big, the dog was gigantic and got more and more excited, enough to cause some concern. For some reason it occurred to me to hiss very loudly at the dog. The sound snappped him out of his steak obsession. He returned to his station by the window, where he could hear his master working. That was about all the excitement for that trip to the remote Alpujarras. Except....Granada was taken from the Moors by siege. For the Emir Boabdil to surrender there was considerable negotiation. It resulted in an agreement which granted to the residents the continued possession and use of their language, religion, laws and judges. Boabdil and his court were granted safe passage to the coast, where they took ship for Morrocco. The guarantees to the Granadans were eventually violated bit by bit by the Spanish Crown, resulting in unrest, revolt, repression, and eventually banishment of the moriscos more than a century after the surrender of Granada. During Boabdil's retreat in 1492 some of the court veered off into the Alpujarras, and blended in with the local muslim population, which was eventually subjected to forced religious conversion, but largely escaped expulsion. Among their Christian descendants were the grandparents of my first true love. Their name was Gomerez. He was the village shopkeeper. Their daughter was a green eyed blonde. Her Berber looks were said to have surfaced many times before. A Communist Republican company was driven into the mountains by the winning Nationalist forces in the Civil war. Their elected Captain fell in love with the shopkeeper's daughter. He was from a land owning peasant family in the Vega, the agricultural country west of Granada. He courted the shopkeeper's daughter, eventually overcame her reluctance. They married and emigrated to Mexico, like so many others. With the wife's commercial knowledge and the husband's drive and ingenuity, they became prosperous. Their daughter, another beautiful green eyed blonde, was my first true love. She was 18, I was 21. We were soon engaged, but waited to marry until I was out of the U.S. Army. She didn't live that long. She was gone at a little over 20. The thought of her and our brief time together fifty-odd years before accompanied me through the mountains that day. Saudade is a Portuguese word for which "nostalgia" is an inadequate translation. Among the ingredients of saudade are a sense of loss, and the privilege of recollecting a beautiful time. The first time I heard Vinicius de Moraes and Tom Jobim's "A Felicidade" the singer substituted "saudade" for "tristeza" as the first word: Saudade não tem fim Felicidade sim A felicidade é como a gota De orvalho numa pétala de flor Brilha tranquila Depois de leve oscila E cai como uma lágrima de amor The brief view of Ferreirrola in the video reminded me of that day in the mountains. RNJ
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