Well, I’m sure that’s just to balance out the stomachache. It’s a yin/yang sort of thing that I’m trying to wrap my head around, but keep getting a headache.
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But where will I get my weekly mansplaining fix?!
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It is a glorious day… now.
During his White House Correspondents Dinner monologue last year, Trevor Noah chided Todd for his interview style.
“How are you doing?” Noah asked Todd. “I’d ask a follow-up, but I know you don’t know what those are.”
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My first time in Spain was in 1970. Tapas got me thru some … shall we say… lean times for which I was at the time very grateful.
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I don’t know if it’s still in business, but there was a fantastic tapas bar in Chicago (on Halsted in Lincoln Park) called “Cafe Ba-Ba-Reeba”.
In the late '80s, my roommate’s brother was the head waiter, and he used to get us preferred tables and special “off the menu” dishes from the kitchen. Even the regular menu and specials were unbelievable–and don’t even get me started on the endless sherry import list…
Of course, it was American (despite the mostly-Spanish wait staff) and probably couldn’t hold a candle to its Spanish counterparts–especially in the freshness of its seafood–but I sure miss it!
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the idea of a chain of being is more to do with complexity of how that stuff is arranged. All beings and things can be made of the same stuff, but it’s the complexity of how the stuff is arranged that gets our attention, to notice the difference between degrees of complex beings. Thinking this way is the general basis for vegetarianism, that we want to avoid causing unecessary suffering to the more complex beings (the ones we understand are more capable of feeling suffering). we might even think of a chain of being in terms of increased responsibility to the rest. this idea of a chain of being is not all bad.
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I remember free small plates of finger food in bars in Costa Rica, but that was many years ago and in remote locations, not tourist areas. No idea if that still survives.
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My family visited the Alhambra in 1973 when we were living in Europe. What an amazing complex!
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I spent 3 years in southern Mexico. You are right. Ya hafta ask for the check. There was one restaurant I frequented in the town of Palenque. I became friends with the staff and the owners. It was not a big place. Just a small family run eatery. But excellent food. I brought what business I could to them. When I was getting ready to head back to the US I noted the place had become popular among tourists. I was happy to see how busy they were
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I wish Bourdain was still with us. But his inner demons won.
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I was referring to the Great Chain of Being that the author wrote about.
I think we need a wealth tax or some other way of redistributing property every generation. But my experience of rent control was that it was pretty bad. In economic terms, it’s essentially a tax on landlords and a subsidy to renters, however, there’s rarely much rationale behind how much the tax is or who gets the subsidy. Landlords have no incentive to rent to people who need affordable rent, long-term tenants often get the biggest subsidies, which in Cambridge are often people who were once poor students, but have been well-paid professionals for decades.
Since the price of a rental property is a function of the rent, there are significant profits to be made by gaming the system or just ignoring the laws. Thus, sleazes go into rental real estate, the better landlords leave.
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Just a point of information. I’m in Barcelona, well near it. In Catalonia, and in fact almost all of northern Spain, tapas aren’t free. They’re also much larger, and are generally plates that are designed to be shared as dinner (which is a lighter meal typically than lunch). The free ones are really only an Andalusian custom, which Catalans find a bit exotic.
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yeah, Rick Steves has done Tapas bar crawls and he shows that they make you pay for it
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Tapas And Social Revolutions
The title reminds me of something my wife and I saw in Bilbao back in the early 90s. Living in eastern France at the time we decided to spend our university’s “spring break” training around Spain. Much to our surprise, we arrived in Donostia/San Sebastián with around 100,000 environmentalists preparing to protest the construction of a new highway and nuclear plant nearby.
The demonstrations went pretty much as you’d expect until the early evening when the heavily armed Policía Nacional decided to clear all the public spaces. This set of violent confrontations with the protesters, including the burning of large cardboard effigies of nuclear plants, bulldozers, etc.
Needless to say, we quickly made our escape to a nearby bar where that served pinchos, the Basque version of tapas. And we weren’t alone; the joint was packed with similarly minded protesters. However, most only stayed for one round of drinks and just a plate or two of pinchos. Then it was back outside to “Fight the Man!” They were then quickly replaced by a new wave of protesters seeking sustenance.
And so throughout the evening, we witnessed what I thought was a very civilized Spanish (and Basque?) form of protest, requiring frequent breaks for much needed refreshments!
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“[T]he Great Chain of Being was irreparably smashed.” Check, that, Joe. I don’t think you really mean “irreparably.” Your whole point here is the destructive persistence of hierarchy in wealth and income. We no longer believe that there is something intrinsic or divinely sanctioned to the private persons of landlords that justifies their gouging of tenants. But they still gouge tenants. Billionaires still as much as buy command of political systems. Corporate employers still exploit the crap out of employees, the poorer and more powerless the employee, the worse the exploitation.
To the extent that our political economy is hierarchical, the deep structure of the Great Chain of Being endures. Like the deepest of muscle memories.
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Capital in the USA has always been more important than humans. It is the Ayn Rand way. Humans are commodities to be exploited and monetized.
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yes, I was, too. I’m talking about the same thing, that there is a sort of ladder of complexity, and the higher levels are traditionally more associated with a concept of the divine.
My point was that affirming that does not have to take away from holism generally. we’re still made of the same stuff. kinship with difference.
suicide like that is horrible. if people can get help right before an episode, it can stop them from acting when they are feeling at their worst. I lost a good friend to suicide. it’s terribly unfortunate <3
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I was there in January 1990 as well!!! With a study abroad program through Syracuse…
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