In Spanish class we watched an angry movie in Basque and a sad movie in Galician. The teacher explained in a matter-of-fact voice that the landscape of Galicia was unbearably beautiful, that it always rained, there were castles and petroglyphs and dolmens and the coast was pure stone like Ireland’s. Introspective, resigned, and melancholy, the people answered one question with another in a singsong, and played “primitive bagpipes” called gaita galega. Their language contained eight falling and rising diphthongs: ai, au, eu, ei, oi, ui, ou, and iu. The “Galician trinity” was cow, tree, sea; the Galician himself was a tree with wings: despite roots he flew away.
when I came back to California after college everyone kept expressing horror at the idea of enduring a Chicago winter and I would tell them that the trick is to entirely repress the experience of cold weather until it happens the next year. anyway the same thing is true of getting one’s period
I like art that depicts women not posing seductively or gracefully but simply existing as human beings.
Works:
1. Ampio orizzonte by Ettore Tito, 1910 2. Mariana (Millais) by John Everett Millais, 1851 3. Bathing Girls by Paul Gustave Fischer, 1860-1934 4 If a woman reads a book in the forest but no one is there to see it… by Jenna Gribon, 2020 5. The Reader Wreathed with Flowers / Virgil’s Muse by Camille Corot, 1845 6. In the Garden by Helena Janecic 7. A girl with her bike looking over the water by Alexander Akopov 8. Girl with a Straw Hat by Francine Van Hove 9. After the Ball by Ramon Casas, 1895 10. Untitled by Francine Van Hove
