The tattoist of Auschwitz 

Today I have started reading this book.

I cannot find the reason why the stories that are written about this near and dark moment attract me. Sometimes I think that it´s because in my adolescence I was interned in an institution whose objective was to annul the will of those who passed through that gate, they said, to become an upstanding citizen. Other times I reckon that in the novels that I read – very few - and in the movies that I saw - many more – I was able to understand, as if it were a parallel world, some of the miseries of men.

 

     Of planes and sharks 

     Dear Fran,

     Use this email to communicate you the pleasant news that my work "Holly, your flight has been canceled" has been selected in the LXIX National Painting Contest of Gibraleón.

 

El Viar

<< ... so I have changed Stromness for El Viar and Kirkwall for Villaverde del Río. My bike rides to Skara Brae and Birsay, I have changed them for the Pedro Espiga farmhouse, and the St Magnus cathedral for the Purísima Concepción church.

 

     A lifelong friendship

     Dear friend,

   My señora complains about a friend of hers because she says that she asks a lot, that she wants to know about people, but she hardly talks about her and her own; that she would be an excellent journalist.

 

        Postponed trip

     This time it could not be. The damn bug is getting people's plans to fall apart and, as written on a sheet of paper, wrinkled and thrown into the trash can, because we don't know when they will start up again.

 

We the brave

The moments that we´re living in some countries are to start to tremble. And all by a few bosses who are elected by the economic elites and by those who don´t understand the politics they are feeding, either due to neglect or ignorance. This is the case in the United States. In the middle of the race to continue sitting in the White House or to get the ass on the armchair with the most power in the world, we are witnessing real aberrations, such as hearing Mr Trump saying that doctors are interested in the virus continuing to wreak havoc on the people's health because that is how they have work. Unbelievable!

 

I don't like those guys 

I have to say it, but I've never liked guys who only navel-gazing and don't give a shit about each other.

 

Passenger Z again  

     Dear Fran,

     Passenger Z keeps giving me cheerfulness.

     "Move it," my teacher told me, before the painting workshop closed due to the arrival of coronavirus 19. To tell you the truth, I was not very confident that the painting would be liked in other contests, so I had it cornered because I did not see it with enough quality to give it to Carlos.

     New travel to Cortegana

<<Today has been the first time that I have gone to Cortegana knowing that I was not going to find my tía María.

   A B.B. rifle

   Dear Fran,

   Do you know that there was a writer who, as a child, dreamed of owning a B.B. gun to kill sparrows?

Deuses de Barro (II)

Perhaps Agustina Bessa-Luís, the novice, abuses a bit of double signs (?!), some repetitions and too many ellipses, in my opinion.

Marchena

I just came from the town of Godoy's father. Fran, sure you know it, but it has not been until now that I have been able to visit it.

Deuses de Barro 

From Agustina Bessa-Luís I select some paragraphs that, incredible as it may seem, belong to a nineteen-year-old writer.

Do Porto ao Gulag (III)

The first part of this chapter (VII) is dedicated to the liberal movements that are spreading across southern Europe.

Do Porto ao Gulag (II)

Sometimes, on the coldest winter days, I like to drink this wine, mulled with a few drops of lemon. Second pause. Second gulp.

Do Porto ao Gulag

The last book published by José Milhazes is entitled Do Porto ao Gulag. In this new journey through tsarist Russia, our writer delves into the life of a Portuguese merchant and diplomat who had the vision and the courage to move from the warm Cidade Invicta to the cold lands of the north from Europe and make a brilliant career in the service of Portugal, Russia and from his own pocket.

      Assidean chant  

   I wish I could talk to my teacher about what is happening to me. It is simply that I am not able to create something that I like.

   A gift  

   Dear Fran,

   the last two works I have done are these. Both ones are from the town of my friend Antonio and his wife Carmen, whom I have known for a long time; you could say that since I got here. With the first one, in which only a tower of the castle appears, I had a question: I also painted a clothesline with clothes that appeared on one of the rooftops in the photo or did without this detail and left only the walls and roofs without plus?

   Chapel of san Francisco

   Dear Fran,

  The alarm state has already ended. I took the opportunity to go back to Carmona, which as you know is a city that has hooked me since the first time I saw it. On this occasion I have wandered through the necropolis and amphitheater neighborhood and passed by the chapel of San Francisco. I did not know this area and discovering the remains of the old convent of San Sebastián has been a pleasant surprise for me. I have also found the headquarters of an organization that cares about connecting people who need some things and others who, those same things, no longer need them. Her name has caught my attention: My Carmona Solidaria. Half English, half Spanish!

Remains of the convent of San Sebastián

   On the other hand, let us forget from today the numbers of infections and deaths and hope that the outbreaks that have to occur are not as lethal as three months ago.

   Your affectionate,

   Mary

        Víctor María Aparicio Abundancia 

        Dear Fran,

 this morning, while having breakfast, I listened to Radio 3, El Gran Quilombo. When I turned on the device a song was playing: Las Comarcales.

       The transaction

     The business could be very beneficial for my father. When he sent me to serve in the vicarage, on the one hand, I stopped getting in the way -as he said- in the farmer and, on the other, someone would feed me and even some money would come into our house.

     Having one night stands

     It can be said that the vicar's son was a flighty, and I suppose he will continue to be so if he is not dead. If not, how can you call the guy who had been romping with Violet the night before and was flirting with Hope the next morning? And what about my grumpy sister who was being cajoled by her future brother-in-law, even though she didn't know about the barn?

Dinosaurs

That afternoon we had left the cinema and, kicking at how many cans we met on the street, at one point I asked Mike how he believed the dinosaurs had disappeared.

Forty-ninth day of quarantine

     Our painting teacher has asked us to make a video telling about what this workshop has been like, initially in person and since March 13 online. For me it is the first time that I get in front of the mobile, as I am not fond of selfies nor have I ever handled the video that the device brings.

     So I tell you. I made a small script, I adapted a music to what was convenient for me that the experience was going to last and I got down to work. When I finished it, it had taken me about ten minutes; exactly ten minutes and twenty-seven seconds and do you know what happened when I uploaded it to the group?

     They told me it was very long. That I repeat it but that it does not exceed a couple of minutes or three.

     Dear friend, in this painting workshop there is a colleague who entered at the same time as me; we were both starting from scratch, but he already has a great advantage over me. Well, Curro, that is his name, summed up the situation with a phrase that left me surprised and a little sad: People no longer have time to watch a video of more than three minutes. And he also gave me the reason: ‘El personal’ is in a hurry, because they want to see and hear many things and cannot stop long.

     So here I see myself trying to reflect in 1 minute and 59 seconds my work since the school year started until today.

     However, he, my colleague, has made a video that he has sent me and that lasts more than six minutes, and he vows that he will not modify it and that he does not care if they see it or not. I think the world is too swift, that time passes over us without being touched and that with that way of running we leave behind really important things.  

     24824

     Y. a.

     Mary

Forty-fourth day of quarantine

     Dear Friend,

     from yesterday to today only 288 people have died of coronavirus. It is the first time that it has dropped from 300, although, they say, during the weekends, the count of unfortunate cases is less because all the people are not working and you have to wait for these to be computed on Monday or Tuesday. Either way, to myself, it is a very positive thing, because I have known this observation since the beginning of the pandemic.

Forty-first day of quarantine

     Dear Fran,

    What do you think about Godoy's proposal so that we don't have to repeat the masculine or feminine of words that are feminine or masculine so that we can speak or write without hurting anyone's sensibility?

     The following email arrived yesterday:

Banqueticians again 

After the scourge of this virus, will we be better persons? Will some things be fixed that at present and by history are so unfair?

Thirty-fourth day of quarantine 

     Dear friend,

     Today I am a little sad. We have already been confined for 34 days and I do not see the end of this situation. Where's that light they talk about at the end of the tunnel?

Death in Venice

This confinement is allowing me, on the one hand, to catch up with my friends and acquaintances; some of them with a relationship that had grown cold or intoxicated over the years.

Twenty-second day of quarantine

     Dear Fran,

     I must tell you that a few days ago I received an email from the Culture Technician of Lora del Río with the artists who had been selected in the Painting Contest promoted by the City Council of that city, and I have to tell you that I am not among those chosen for the final exhibition.

Nineteenth day of quarantine

        We just had our second telematics painting class.

Sixteenth day of quarantine

     They say that tightness in the chest is one of the symptoms. What I miss the most is physical contact. When we go out into the street, I will remove from my interior all the hugs that compress my chest.

Eleventh day of quarantine

     A few days ago, I do not know where, I read this: Germany will close its borders with France, Austria and Switzerland tomorrow Monday, not only due to the coronavirus, but to prevent panic purchases by citizens of the mentioned countries. 

     Do you want black or white?

     To put words in his nephew´s mouth, Basilio Nebreda was a man "resigned to the unhappiness of having no one with whom to share the activities that really fascinated him." And I must guess that he was mainly referring to his wife.

Many more families will lose their loved ones

Ciencia y Caridad. A teenager, but already a great artist, titled like that a great, for its dimensions but above all for its quality, painting where a doctor examines a sick woman in bed. A nun and a small child also appear on the canvas.

Toilet tissue

I go out and everyone talks about the same thing. A woman and a man each of them with their dog they are talking; an old lady on her cell phone urges her family and friends to fill the fridge with food and they will run and they will seize with the supermarket stock: the shelves will be empty.

Õunad Haapsalus

      Dear Fran,

     You ask me what I am painting right now and I will tell you that I am finishing a painting inspired by a photograph that you sent me from your trip to Estonia.

About an article by Ian Mc Ewan 

On the occasion of the UK's exit from the EU, Ian McEwan has written an article in The Guardian (Sat 1 Feb 2020) explaining some of his ideas regarding the fact.

A gap in the system

Honey, with this portfolio (Vice president) and yours (Minister of Equality) we will have the mortgage paid in one year.  

     Winter

     It is the time to burn the branches that have been pruned after harvesting the olives.

Rubble

     I have to give you unfortunate news. This is how I found the workshop this morning when I opened the door.

     Between one sentence and another, our teacher included a photo with the pieces of rubble that had fall off the roof.

Webster and Wallace

Stunning story I have known a few days ago about two Scots who founded an insurance company to cover the last years of life of the widows of the Scottish Church ministers.

Take off your hat, Lennie

Children are children. In childhood – fearing to be alone - children have the virtue of dividing in other people and thus being accompanied. This way, while waiting for George, the child Lennie started chattering with his aunt who reproached him his behaviour with his best friend.