"totally uncivilized"

I don't know who made this flyer, but it was something of a constant companion while I was at the language school. In Xela, the school had at least three identical signs up around the building, and there were more at the mountain school. This is a reference the Iraqi journalist-hero who threw an oxford at a phoning-it-in-at-this-farcical-press-conference George Bush. "Another for Guatemala!"

It's funny the first time, less funny the second time, and eventually a lesson in the difference between "por" and "para," those tricky word-cousins that discourage all spanish-learners for, I imagine, their entire lives. Before this sign, I would have said "Otro para Guatemala," and whenever I'm trying to think of which of the two words to use, I think first of this sentence to see if it tells me anything.

Related: Here's a picture of the departing asshole moving to suburban Dallas in an airplane.

The dying LA Times brought news this week that prosecutors in the Phil Spector trial closed their arguments by calling Spector a "demonic maniac." I would love to see this phrase enter into everyday use for people like Bush, or that crazy Sheriff from Arizona, or, yes, I guess Spector too. "Demonic maniac" is a near-perfect phrase, both descriptive and fun to say. Who is with me?

Listening to Mecca Normal this morning. Is it acceptable to consider the following a song-lyric, let alone a fitting album-closer? "It's a truly uncivilized nation that treats medical care as a commodity to be sold; take it, it's yours." If so, I guess that is one part of punk's legacy, which is neat neat neat.

Clearly I'm all over the place today. I'm putting photos from my trip on Flickr over the next couple weeks, so I'll probably still post some to this here weblog with my half-formed thoughts about them.

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Two random music thoughts from Guatemala, followed by a question and a Manu Chao reference.

The other day Eric and his fine amig -o and -a swung through Xela, from El Salvador, on the way to Panama (???). We had a fine time at a gringo-fied spot near Parque Central, watching karaoke and awaiting our never-to-be-had opportunity to absolutely slay "Back in the USSR" for the good people of Xela. Pictures to be posted. On our way out the door, after karaoke was over, we heard two tracks from Portishead's Dummy.

I would just like to go on record as saying that I really really like that record, and that I will be burning the more recent record from Jessica when I get home. Incidentally, I heard the same two tracks ("Biscuit," and I forget the name of the other) before a panel discussion about the recent insanity in Gaza, and while I'm losing any thread of a coherent thought at this point in this post, I will just say again that that was a really good album.

Then I grabbed a hot chocolate with a couple friends Tuesday night, and heard Black Sabbath's "Iron Man," which is a song I dismissed when I was in high school as music for motocross fans. Ten years removed from that oppressive culture (not of high school, but rather of motocross fans), I have to say that the doomy, bendy guitar part at the beginning sounds really cool. (It also sounds like you are about to die.)

We also caught a live version of Descendents' "I'm Not a Loser," and even though I think it was Sublime performing it, I was still into it. Which reminds me: Anyone out there hear the Descendents album that came out last year, and if so, was it good?

Clearly I'm missing some of the music that sits on my shelves, even though I really have come to enjoy a lot of the music I hear here as well.

Yesterday at the end of the Spanish lesson, Saul was like, "Do you like music, what kind of music do you like?" I often avoid answering this question in the U.S., and a person sounds like even more of a goon answering it in a language they are not good at using. And on top of that, the endless genre-slicing and splicing that goes on these days poses a problem: how to reassemble all the feigned-obscurity into a reasonably meaningful response to a fair and simple question? I gave up at "varios tipos."

Saul's response was simple: "Do you like Manu Chao?" Manu Chao sort of makes me depressed for whatever reasons, but his songs also account for something like 25% of the spanish I knew before I got to Guatemala, so: "Of course." Saul pulled out a guitar and gave me a lyric sheet and made me sing "Clandestino" with him. "Can you play the guitar?" No. "Then we will have a lesson tomorrow." Thanks, Saul.

Too much pointless text requires a few pointless photos:

Saw some rad stuff today and am excited to share colorful photos of a colorful church in a colorful place.

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In the wrong hands, the saxophone is an instrument of pure evil.

For some reasn I really loved this shirt. "Genesis," and a big gas pump. This shirt is a metaphor. Not sure what for.

Related to this, translated Phil Collins songs are huge here, sometimes with a techno beat, sometimes with extra saxophone solos. Hurl hurl hurl.

Also, I went to a place the other night to study with a friend, and there was a band that played what I recognized to be Coldplay songs, including saxophone lead-ins and solos.

Saxophoned Coldplay songs sound a lot like Disintegration-era Cure, and at some point before I realized what it was, I got sort of excited because I thought it was a weird version of "Plainsong."

It was not.

I'm working on the subjunctive this week.

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Depressing Spanish Lesson

Last week I finished up with the review of all the various things I studied but never learned in high school and college: present tense, preterite, imperfect, and future.

We moved into the conditional tense and my teacher said, "This is the most important tense in Guatemala because everything in Guatemala is conditional."

As in, "The new president would improve security and social services in Guatemala, but he remembers how the military shot his uncle 36 times back in '79." Or, "Guatemala would have potable water, but that isn't the sort of project the IMF will fund here." (I don't know that for a fact, I'm just guessing.)

So anyway, in a nutshell, the conditional tense.

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