by Charlie Geer
Noted Abroad documents DSM contributor Charlie Geer’s forays in foreign and not-so- foreign parts. Currently he is living and working in Puente Genil, a small town in southern Spain.
Issue 9.8
In a Word, Scary
In high school I once heard talk about a banned video called Faces of Death—purportedly a collection of actual human deaths caught on tape. It occurs to me that the people who talked up this video, if they are not now in prison, would appreciate Spanish television. Here in Spain you don’t have to track down a banned video called Faces of Death to see actual faces of death: you only have to turn on the news. On the news, just about anything goes. Blood stains on the sidewalk, corpses in smashed up cars, shootings recorded by security cameras—it’s all here. A recent story involved a woman who survived being stabbed in the back of the neck with a butcher knife. The reporter explained that her assailant had driven the blade so far in that the knife was still there, jammed deep in the (fully conscious) woman’s neck, when authorities arrived. The thing is, a viewer did not have to take the reporter’s word for it: as the woman was being escorted to the ambulance, cameramen got up close and personal, and there she was on television, a woman-with-a-butcher-knife-jammed-deep-in-her-neck being escorted to an ambulance.
Seems the only thing you can’t show on the news in Spain is the face of a minor. Even as the faces of adults are shown freely, no matter how brutalized or disfigured, the faces of children are routinely obscured with fuzzy pixels, no matter how innocuous the story in which they appear. You might say that, on the news at least, children are treated with more respect than dead, dying, or seriously maimed adults, which does make a certain biological sense, children being the future and whatnot, and does correspond with Spain’s reputation as a good place to be a kid. But if this fuzzy-pixel practice is meant to show reverence for the young, if it is meant to preserve and/or remind us of their innocence, it often misses the mark, at least for this viewer. A fuzzy-pixeled face can appear inhuman, androidish, alien. In a word, scary. Here’s what I look like with my face fuzzy-pixeled:
Granted, not many minors are severely bald, and most minors are cuter and more virtuous-looking to begin with. Still, the fact is that a dis-emfaced body–any dis-emfaced body–can be more than a little disturbing. Too, in the US we are accustomed to this fuzzy-pixel effect being used to mask private parts. So that an American watching Spanish news might be excused for wondering if a Spanish kid has a rear end, or worse, for a face.
Issue 9.7
Digestively Speaking
I found this sign in Madrid. As any English-teacher-with-too-much-time-on-his-hands will tell you, “Fast Good” does not really work grammatically. It’s a pair of adjectives, and adjectives are in the world to modify nouns. Without a noun, an adjective doesn’t really have a job. It’s just sitting there on its butt. Seeing this sign, an English-teacher-with-too-much-time-on-his-hands might ask, What is fast and good? A fast good what? What the hell do they sell here, anyway? Ethical motorbikes? A Spaniard with a little knowledge of English, on the other hand, would probably know exactly what is sold here: fast food. How would they know that? Because of pronunciation issues. The sound the double-o makes in our “good” does not exist in Castilian, so Spaniards will often pronounce it “gude.” Meaning that “Fast Good,” on the lips of a Spaniard, can work as a twist on “fast food.” All of which is to say that in this establishment you can find fast food that, if there is truth in advertising, is good.
Incidentally, in Spain fast food of the Burger King sort is known as comida basura, or “trash food.” That’s two nouns, which shouldn’t really work either, but does. (Linguistically, at least. Digestively speaking, “trash food” maybe does not work so well.) Anyway, we do the same thing, with “junk food.”
Issue 9.6
Another Furrowed Brow
The summer before I left to teach in Spain I took work as a striker on a shrimp boat with the idea of earning a fat wad of cash to help me get started in my new life abroad. The work was mostly miserable, and what with the absurdly high price of fuel and the absurdly low price of shrimp that summer, there was no fat wad of cash. I could as well have stayed home and watched daytime television for four months. That would have been just as inspiring, and about as profitable. By the end of the job, I took consolation where I could find it: at least I’d have something to talk about when I got to Spain and all my new friends wanted to know what kind of work I’d done back home.
“Striker on a shrimp boat” does not translate well. At my level of Spanish, it does not translate at all. Easier to just say I had recently worked as a fisherman. Too, “fisherman” has an adventurous ring to it. In fact there is nothing adventurous about working as a striker on a shrimp boat. Mostly it involves digging for shrimp among mounds of squirming sea life, much of which has spines, tentacles, and/or claws, and none of which is happy to see you. No—it would not be necessary to go into all that. Sufficient to simply say I had worked as a fisherman. In which case I would have done well to remember that in Spanish most fishing-related words have “pes” in them somewhere, from the Latin piscis.
A fish is un pescado, a fisherman is un pescador, and fishing is pescando. The “s” is all-important. Without it, all of these innocuous fishing-related words become sinning-related. If you leave out the “s,” you have un pecado, which is a sin; un pecador, which is a sinner; and pecando, which is sinning. There may be some connection, here, what with Jesus being the “fisher of men,” and then of course the whole Jonah incident, but the point is, that “s,” a single letter, is the difference between Sea World and the Inquisition. Like all the best language lessons, all the lessons that stick, I learned this one the hard way—by making an ass of myself.
It was early in the school year, but not too early—it was never too early—for my married male friends to start inquiring as to whether I’d found a “private language instructor” yet.
Wherever I go, I get this question from married male friends, early and often, and sometimes I wonder if I’m not being asked to live out some extramarital fantasy for these married male friends. Far be it from me to deny my friends—I oblige them whenever I can. It’s just that as I grow older, finding a “private language instructor” gets harder to do. As I grow older, I grow balder and plumper and no more financially competent, and it so happens that most women abroad are no more interested in balding, economically challenged writers than are most women at home. Still, I do what I can, and after I met my Spanish colleagues that year I decided I’d try my luck with an art teacher named Blanca.
At a faculty meet-and-greet Blanca came across as bright, hip, interesting. She was reading, or at least carrying around, The Trial in translation (El Proceso). She seemed like just the kind of woman I might like to get to know. And I might have really gotten to know Blanca, I might even be presently married to Blanca, if I had not forgotten that “s” when I was telling her about—or thought I was telling her about—the work I’d done as a fisherman back home.
Chatting in the teacher’s lounge between classes, we picked up where we’d left off at the meet-and-greet. Blanca asked if I worked as a teacher back home and I told her I had, but that most recently I had worked as a fisherman. I thought Blanca might find this impressive, or at least interesting, but the squint of her eyes and furrow in her brow said otherwise.
I get the furrowed brow a lot abroad. I’ve learned that usually it has to do with my pronunciation. “Un pecador,” I said, a bit louder (it can’t be helped), and enunciating as clearly as I could.
“Sí, sí,” Blanca said. Her nod—vague, measured—suggested that although she did understand what I had said, it worried her more than it interested her.
Maybe Blanca just needed to know more. If only she could see the enchanted little fishing village I had called home, that hamlet by the sea. I went on to tell her all about the town full of pecadors, people who were born to work with pecados, a way of life inspired by pecando. There was something romantic about this kind of talk—or at least there would have been, if instead of waxing nostalgic about fish, fishing and fishermen I weren’t waxing nostalgic about sin, sinning and sinners.
I couldn’t help noting that the more I talked, the less Blanca did. At some point, about the time I mentioned a way of life inspired by pecando, her eyes started shifting back and forth, as if she were scanning for backup, or an emergency exit. My mother always said a good conversationalist asks about the other person, but I didn’t have a chance to ask Blanca about Blanca before she was making an excuse—something about a cat on the stove and a pot in the yard—and with scarcely an hasta luego, leaving the room.
I didn’t understand why—had Blanca maybe had a bad experience with a fisherman? did I smell like a fisherman?—until I talked with a colleague named Luisa later that week. Luisa spoke some English, and early on she took up the kindly habit of doing so whenever my Spanish spun out. Luisa, too, looked baffled when I told her that I had worked as a fisherman back home. What the hell? Did people not work as fishermen in Spain? What about that famed Galician sea-fare? Did it just wash up on shore?
“Un pecador,” I said emphatically.
Sensing trouble, Luisa shifted to English. “Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “I just do not understand.”
Well, déjà damn vu.
“I—you worked as a…sinner?”
“What do you mean?” I said. Commercial fishermen have been known to knock back a few, but to categorically send them all to Hell seemed a little extreme.
“Like a—drug trafficker—something like this?” Luisa said. “Or a prostitute?”
The drug trafficking I could maybe understand—more than a few fishermen have had a go at that—but prostitution? Did Spanish fishermen resort to turning tricks when times were tough? “I was a fisherman, Luisa,” I said. “Fishermen do use hooks, but they aren’t hookers—at least where I’m from.”
“A fisherman?”
“A fisherman. A pecador. Shrimping. Not pimping.”
“A fisherman. Then you mean a pescador.”
“I do?”
“With an ‘s’.”
“Oh? So then what’s a pecador?”
“A sinner.”
“It is?” I said. “So a pecado is…?”
“A sin.”
The business with Blanca was becoming clearer. “And so then pecando is not fishing.
It’s—sinning.”
“Fishing is pescando,” said Luisa. “Also with an ‘s’.”
And clearer. “Right. Now I’m starting to get it.”
“Get what?”
“The difference a letter makes.”
“Ah. Yes.”
Yes indeed. It’s true in English, too. In English an “s” is the difference between a #1 pop song and what I felt like when I understood what a mess I’d made of my résumé in front of Blanca. Essentially I had told her, with evident pride, that most recently I worked as a sinner in a town full of sinners who also sinned for a living. These sinners had a unique way of life, and it was all inspired by sinning.
Wow. Even if we can say that assessment is not far off—certainly the captain and I never stopped by church on our way from the shrimp dock to the bar—it’s a little much unless you’re talking to somebody who trucks in sin, say a hardcore Satanist or a hardcore evangelist. I didn’t take Blanca for either. In fact it’s possible that what had really troubled her was my using the word sin to describe an activity, a person, a way of life—any activity, person, or way of life. That would confirm some of Spain’s worst suspicions about a sanctimonious, Bible-thumping America. It would have a distinctly Puritanical air to it, and if there’s one thing that tends not to fly post Franco, especially among the young and hip, it’s Puritanical airs. In any case, whatever Blanca did make of my relationship with sin, sinning and sinners, she didn’t want any part of it, and we never got past routine salutations again.
Truth be told, that was probably for the best. Given the chance to redeem myself in the Spanish I spoke then, I would surely have only made things worse. As for my married male friends, I’d hoped the absurdity of the affair might offset the letdown, but on the whole, they were not amused.
Issue 9.5
Just Being Himself
This is from northern Portugal. What first grabbed me here is the name of the wrestler on the right. I thought maybe Mr. Mahoney was trying to get away with something in a foreign land—the kind of thing I might be trying to get away with if I called myself “Huevos” Geer back home. If you didn’t happen to know that huevos is slang for balls, you might look up huevo in the dictionary, and find egg. While you might think me, Eggs Geer, a little odd, you wouldn’t necessarily think me presumptuous and vulgar. Likewise, a Portuguese looking up ball would find a reference to a spherical, sometimes-inflated piece of sports equipment. Insomuch as pro wrestling can be considered a sport, the name “Balls” might then be deemed appropriate in some not-entirely-accurate way, and yes, with a wink and a grin Balls Mahoney gets away with something he could not get away with back home, in the puritanical U.S. of A. So I was thinking, anyway. In fact, a little research reveals that Balls Mahoney goes by “Balls” in the States, too, at least on stage. He is, it seems, rather well known in the pro-wrestling world. So he’s not trying to get away with anything, after all. He’s just being himself. As for Rey Misterio…that translates as “Mystery King.”
Issue 9.3
Home Ron
In Bonao, Dominican Republic, a popular bar is Home Ron, which translates as Home Rum. The staff wears Yankees jerseys. Soccer, even World Cup soccer, is not normally televised at Home Ron—or anywhere else in the DR. American Marines brought baseball to the country a long time ago, and given the heat, the sport stuck. Baseball, it seems, was easier to plant than political stability. That took a couple of tries. As for baseball…now, across the Major League, the Dominican Republic is bringing the sport back home.
Reading ¨No Country for Old Men¨ in Puente Genil
To practice English pronunciation and usage, my student Concha and I are reading No Country for Old Men. The local bookstore has a limited number of English titles, and I pushed Cormac McCarthy over Dan Brown. In any case, Concha has taken to calling the character Chigurh “Sugar,” which, if it is not an appropriate name for a psychopath, is a pronouncable one, and pedagogically useful: Calling Chigurh “Sugar,” Concha has an opportunity to practice the “sh” and short “u” sounds, neither of which exists in Castilian. Also useful is the amount of blood in the novel. Concha wants to pronounce the “oo” as a long “u,” as in “food” or “mood,” so with “blood” we have an opportunity to work on the short “u” again, as well as an opportunity to face down yet another oddity of English spelling. Given the amount of blood in the novel, ample opportunity. Concha is also learning a great deal about firearms. That is to say, she is learning American English.
Issue 9.2
Wee-Fee
In Spain, “wi-fi” is pronounced “wee-fee.” (The Spanish “i” sounds like the English “ee.”) “Wee-fee” is cute for awhile, but on a bad day, in a foul mood, a visiting language instructor might be tempted to correct the pronunciation, pointing out that “wi-fi” is a shortened form of the English “wireless fidelity,” so the proper pronunciation is “why-fye.” But wait. Is it? In fact, unless you are from deep in Appalachia and of an elder generation—unless you say things like “cain’t get enough of that high FYE-delity”—the “why-fye” pronunciation is not entirely accurate either. In fact the most faithful pronunciation of the short form for wireless fidelity might just be a hybrid of the English and Spanish pronunciations: “why-fee.”
Pick Ouic
PICK OUIC is a store here in Puente Genil. The store offers clothing. The name of the store offers three different languages–English, a sort of French, and Spanish–in two words. Where’s the third? In the pronunciation. The “i,” in Castilian, sounds like the English “ee.” As an example, “wi-fi” is pronounced “wee-fee.” As a more relevant example, “Pick Wick,” on the lips of a Spaniard, might be pronounced “Peek Week.” This should help explain “Pick Ouic.”
Issue 9.1
This is Santiago, also known as Saint James. In Spain he came to be called “Santiago Matamoros,” or “Santiago the Moorslayer.” If it helps, you can think of him as a sort of sponsor of the Crusades, like say McDonald’s and the Olympics. In this picture, taken at the cathedral in Compostela, we see Santiago in action—slaying a Moor. Only we can’t really see the slain Moor, not very well, because in recent years the Church has taken to hiding him with flowers. This might be called revisionist history. It’s not entirely clear whose sensitivities the flowers are meant to protect. The fact is, a lot of Moors were slain in the name of Santiago. And of course the Moors slew people, too. A lot of people. Maybe the Church has decided that all this slaying business is not very Christian, and means to bury it. If that’s the case, here’s hoping the Church doesn’t stop here, with a few flowers. Hard as it may be to believe, people around the world still get into slaying each other.
We certainly can’t say the flowers are there to protect visitors from graphic images of violence. If you want graphic images of violence, go to church. To wit, this shot from the cathedral in Segovia:
Even a doubter can’t help being moved by some of the Catholic iconography. The images do tend to drive the point home, to really tell the story. Which was of course the point of iconography in the first place: to tell the story to people who could not read, or did not understand Latin. Today most everybody in Spain can read, but, as perhaps in your country, not very many people do. So really it makes sense to keep the iconography around. Or it would make sense, if anybody still went to church. In fact not many people do. After forty years of Franco, who did some pretty nasty things in the name of God, church kind of lost its appeal.
Church-related holidays and parties, on the other hand, have not lost their appeal. In Andalucía every other week brings a day or two off to celebrate one saint or another. Generally these holidays don’t involve actually going to church to celebrate the saint; generally they involve getting together with friends and family to eat and drink and sing and dance. Some feast days present a curious blend of the Christian and the pagan—of rosary rubbing and wine chugging. As an example:
This caravan is taking part in the festival of Rocío, an annual springtime pilgrimage to the town of Almonte, where resides the Virgin of Rocío. Some pilgrims make the journey on horse-back, others travel by horse-and-buggy, but most opt for the fusion pictured here: big covered wagons and major horsepower. Why the big covered wagons? Why not just take a car? That’s simple: with a big covered wagon, the festivities can begin en route. In a big covered wagon, a large group of family and friends can eat and drink and sing and dance—which is, for a lot of people, the point of going to see the Virgin of Rocío.
Issue 9.0
In Sevilla you can find a bust that honors Cervantes:
This is the building behind the bust that honors Cervantes:
The building used to be a jail. In 1594, Cervantes was imprisoned there for having unpaid debts. Today the building makes a business of debt: it is a bank. Said bank is currently being renovated under the catchphrase “Restoring the Past.” A would-be writer might make note of all this, and apply it to his own ambitions in a manner he finds appropriate. He might also make note of what our friend John B.’s grandfather said when John B. told him he wanted to be a writer: You got to be dead to make a living, don’t you? As a writer?
Strangely Familiar
This is the Disnei Bar, in Segovia. The Spanish have been appropriating foreign words and doing as they like with them for centuries. Before you come down too hard on the Spanish for this, get all bent out of shape about spelling and pronunciation and so far, remember that Americans have done some appropriating, too. Consider the following photo, also from Segovia:
Look strangely familiar? It should. Walt Disney used this, Segovia’s Alcázar, as the model for Sleeping Beauty’s castle, which castle figures so prominently in the Disney logo.
Issue 8.9
Digital Aging
Like a lot of historic marvels, the Alhambra in Granada swarms with visitors, and offers as much in the way of people watching as it does in the way of Moorish splendor. To best record the splendor, you are advised to aim the camera up. Otherwise you will end up with pictures of your fellow visitors—taking pictures. What most people do at the Alhambra, most of the time, is take pictures. The digital camera, of course, allows this. Maybe the digital camera even expects this of you. With a digital camera, you can shoot hundreds of pictures, and later select a decent picture from the comfort of home, which picture you may then send to family and friends as evidence of your experience. In fact your family and friends, viewing the subject on a screen, are having much the same experience you did, maybe even a better one—they are probably viewing the subject on a larger screen, without the distraction of fellow tourists taking pictures. All of which is simply to say that although the digital camera makes recording life easier, it makes actually living life harder. Socrates suggested that the unexamined life is not worth living. That may be true, but the over-examined life is not really lived.
I don’t have pictures of the Capilla Real, the Catholic jewel in Granada’s crown, because photography is not permitted in the Capilla Real. This might make for a more enhanced visit—an experience rather than a recording of an experience—but for the fact that, perhaps precisely because photography is not permitted, visitors tend to tour the chapel at a brisk, noisy pace. It’s as if, since the wonders of the Capilla Real cannot be photographed, they are of little value. Granted, the Capilla Real does not hold a votive candle to the Alhambra, but again, the contemporary tourist is not known to be selective with shots. Visiting the Capilla Real, a body almost gets to wishing photography were permitted, so that folks might slow down, and be a little quieter.
Market Share
This is one of the wonders of Córdoba. Córdoba was founded in 152 BC. The Burger King was built a few years ago. It is located in the historic Judería district, directly across from Córdoba’s famous mosque, the Mezquita (785 AD). At the Burger King you will find standard BK offerings. At the mosque, you will find not only the usual Moorish splendor, but several Catholic chapels and assorted Catholic iconography. This is because in 1523 the Catholic Church turned the mosque into a place of Christian worship. In Córdoba, as in much of the world, the quest for market share has been going on for some time, now.
In Seville, too, the quest continues. The photograph below was taken across from Seville’s cathedral, which was built on the ruins of the Almohad mosque. In Seville, as perhaps in your hometown, there are three of these—Starbucks, not mosques or cathedrals—in as many blocks.
Uncle Yosemite
This picture was taken in Salta, Argentina. Tío means “uncle.” As a proper noun, “Yosemite” does not translate well, and in light of recent foreign policy, our dear old Uncle Sam might well be mistaken for the excitable, pistol-packing Yosemite. Close analysis of the photograph reveals something in the way of sound foreign policy advice: Here Uncle Yosemite Sam appears to be brandishing a pair of moneybags, instead of his usual revolvers.
Spanish Class
Should anyone be planning to visit Spain, I’ve prepared a short starter list of contemporary Spanish words and expressions, presented below. It’s best to be patient, and really work with the words. Remember: The important thing is to try. Trying goes a long way in a foreign country. If you make an effort, locals are usually happy to meet you halfway.
the Internet– el Internet
a playboy — un playboy
a joint venture — un joint venture
ticket — un ticket
marketing — marketing
stress — stress
underground — underground
sexy — sexy
wi-fi — wi-fi (pronounced “wee-fee”)
an Internet junky — un friki (pronounced “freaky”)
jet set — la jet
a popular club — un trendy
a relaxing day — un dia de relax
spa — un centro de relax
The Rolling Stones — Los Rolling
jogging — footing
a birth-control pill — una pildora antibaby
a king-size bed — una cama de king-size
a puffy pillow — un puf (pronounced “poof”)
A Useless Experience
This picture was taken in the bathroom of a boarding house in Cachoeira, Brazil. Translated, the platitude-of-the-day reads, THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS A USELESS EXPERIENCE. At the time the picture was taken, the town of Cachoeira had been without running water for several days, and because the (single-toilet) bathroom was being shared among twenty some-odd boarders—most of them foreigners still adjusting to the gastrointestinal requirements of Bahian cuisine—twenty some-odd people came to take issue with the notion that there is no such thing as a useless experience. It must be noted, however, that none of the guests suffered irreparable harm as a result of the experience, and that the experience did ultimately find a kind of use—as an unpleasant memory. Whether any of the boarders privately gave thanks to God for the experience, as the fine-print-of-the-day encourages, is not possible to say.
Charlie Geer is the author of the novel “Outbound: The Curious Secession of Latter-Day Charleston.” His work has appeared in Tin House, The Sun, Bloomsbury Magazine, and The Southern Review.
