La bella cubana

Chico and Rita (Chico & Rita) is a 2.010 Spanish animated feature-length film directed by Fernando Trueba and Javier Mariscal.

Chico is an accomplished and gifted  pianist, Rita a young great jazz singer, they met and fell in love in Havana late 1940s, those were turbulent years, like their relationship. Indeed they finally fell apart.

In 1959, after the victory of Cuban Revolution, jazz music is banned because it is capitalist music so Chico felt deeply depressed, also because Rita has suddenly vanished from Cuba, but many years later, living in the United States, he searches for Rita again...

I'm not going to tell you more about the film -I don't want to spoil the story- but if you have time, please listen to Bebo Valdés playing "La bella cubana", such an unforgettable masterpiece.




Terry Gross interviewed Fernando Trueba on April 13, 2012 at NPR Fresh Air studio, that is an amazing podcast, if you enjoyed the film.

Beware of darkness

It has been a long time since I've written something in this "abandoned" Blog, but never is too late,  and after all I missed this place and reading my favourite blogs for so long.

Now, after watching the documentary by Martin Scorsese "Living in the Material World",  I have found a new title for my Blog, because I would like to pay tribute to George Harrison,  he is actually an inspirational figure for me.

"All Things Must Pass"  is a triple album by George Harrison, recorded and released in 1970, the first solo work from him since the break-up of The Beatles.

Below, you can listen to "Beware of Darkness" a  very lyrical and dramatic ballad, I really like it.

It is the first tune side 3 of this album, enjoy it!

"Beware of Darkness".

Watch out now, take care
Beware of falling swingers
Dropping all around you
The pain that often mingles
In your fingertips
Beware of darkness

Watch out now, take care
Beware of the thoughts that linger
Winding up inside your head
The hopelessness around you
In the dead of night

Beware of sadness
It can hit you
It can hurt you
Make you sore and what is more
That is not what you are here for

Watch out now, take care
Beware of soft shoe shufflers
Dancing down the sidewalks
As each unconscious sufferer
Wanders aimlessly
Beware of maya

Watch out now, take care
Beware of greedy leaders
They take you where you should not go
While weeping atlas cedars
They just want to grow, grow and grow
Beware of darkness (beware of darkness)

Something

Frank Sinatra called this "The greatest love song ever written, and I agree with him.

I really like the lyrics, because Harrison speaks beautifully, in a very subtle way, about the reasons she woos him, I mean "the way she moves",  "her smile"...

Something.

Something in the way she moves
Attracts me like no other lover
Something in the way she woos me
I don't wanna leave her now
I know I believe and how

Somewhere in her smile she knows
That I don't need no other lover

Something in her style that shows me
I don't wanna leave her now
I know I believe and how

You're asking me will my love grow
I don't know, I don't know
You stick around now it may show
I don't know, I don't know

Something in the way she knows
And all I have to do is think of her
Something in the things she shows me
I don't wanna leave her now
I know I believe and how.

The Summit of the Wonders

This is a wonderful video which describes in only two minutes the life of a woman, “the grandmother”.

Using only a few old black and white photographies, she talks about Family, Love, Life... 

The grandmother talks in Spanish, but her words are subtitled in English.

Summary (by Jaime Royo-Villanova)

Some things are unique, precious.

They exist at the whim of Nature.

This is “Grandmother”, the taxonomical record of the Miracle of Life.

A baby laughing, plenty of enthusiasm and passion.

A sixteen years old mother.

A girl growing up and falling in love.

At the peak of the mountain, her husband looks at her,

staring, in ecstasy, without pressing the camera button.

Finally, he does. Both of them are there, forever.

She said: “This is The Summit of the Wonders”.

GRANDMOTHER from Borja Zausen on Vimeo.

At the End.

We shall not cease exploration.

   
                   
And at the end of all our exploring...

   
                   
will be to arrive where we started...

   
                   
and know the place for the first time.

T.S. Eliot

~ Four Quartets ~ 

Nostalgia

The brilliant and famous "The Carousel" episode of Mad Men, video and transcription:

This is "The Carousel Speech" from "Mad Men".

“Well, technology is a glittering lure. But, uh, there’s the rare occasion when the public can be engaged on a level beyond flash if they have a sentimental bond with the product.
My first job, I was in house at a fur company with this old pro copywriter, Greek, named Teddy. And Teddy told me the most important idea in advertising is ‘new’.
Creates an itch.
You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion. But he also talked about a deeper bond with the product, ‘nostalgia’.
It’s delicate, but potent. Teddy told me that in Greek nostalgia literally means the pain from an old wound.
It’s a twinge in your heart far more powerful than memory alone.
This device isn’t a spaceship, it’s a time machine.
It goes backwards, forwards.
It takes us to a place where we ache to go again.
It’s not called the wheel, it’s called the carousel.
It lets us travel the way a child travels.
Round and around and back home again to a place where we know we are loved.

Once

This is an awesome Irish independent movie directed by Jhon Carney in 2007. The soundtrack is even better , contains a lot of beatiful songs.
This is the official trailer:

Awesome Markéta Irglová and her delicate voice.
And my favorite song:  If you want me