Echoes of Flavio's Ghost Dreaming

Pancakes? I’ve never done it. Martes de Carnaval, Shrove Tuesday, has different resonances for me. In Venezuela, in Caracas in particular and, most of all, in the working class neighbourhood in West Caracas where I grew up, it was a savage day where people would roam around throwing water bombs at you -water, that is, if you were lucky. They also would throw -at each other but also at you, or any passer-by- paint, eggs, soap water. There were always stories on the papers about brawls originating from this and stories like that of the soldier or cadet who was walking with his girlfriend on his way to Naval school or something like that and got ... bathed and in the fight that resulted somebody got killed Somebody told me this still is a thing in some parts of Spain, which we inherited that wholesome custom from (I have to find out whether this is true and where, to make sure I never go there). To see the street battles between roaming gangs of young men in loincloths all covered in paint, egg, flour etc was a rather scary thing. And my dad, who in spite of his strong Italian accent had become far more Venezuelan than I ever was or could ever be, one time emptied a big laundry polythene bag full of water on me while I was sitting down reading. I don’t remember enjoying that much, funnily enough. I don’t miss Martes de Carnaval. It wasn’t Rio, it wasn’t Venice; in Caracas it was more like Mordor. My sister tells me that that hm, tradition has fallen out of use, which makes me glad.

One of these years I'll have to have a go at making pancakes. It is a silly and kind of very minor tradition but I'm all for it, having seen other possibilities.

Flavio (that's me) playing J S Bach's Prelude from the Lute Suite 1006a, during a presentation at the programme 'Nachy Presenta' at the Venezuelan Cultural TV Channel TVN5 in 1985 or so. Interesting that I chose such a difficult way of playing that piece, so many things I would do differently but it still is a record of my playing at the time.

General elections in Venezuela today. Really dodgy ones, where the authoritarian streak of the current lot in office begins to approach a real dictatorship (although polls give Maduro 37% against 32 of his main rival but this may not reflect in vote and the main opposition are calling for abstention). Maduro blames the US and big corporations for the current crisis -and it is not entirely untrue but it is only a minor contributing factor where the main one is the incompetence, corruption and hubris of this lot who call themselves 'socialist' and perhaps believe to an extent that what they're doing but the results have gone from bad to catastrophic, which I don't put down to their being socialist but to their being incompetent, corrupt and arrogant. Most people I know that are able to leave the country have done so or are in the process of doing it.

Maduro will win and in a way it may be a legitimate win (the poorest people are still somewhat better off than they were historically, even as the rest of the population is in desperate crisis) but a disaster for my original country nonetheless. A situation that seems to hit bottom all the time and yet it gets ever worse when you think it wouldn't be possible.

The whole thing just breaks my heart.

That was a good week-end, but increasingly I notice that I cannot do all-nighters and go to several clubs on the same night as I ... oh, ok, it always took me several days to recover from that sort of thing, but it doesn't get better as you get older. Still, it was all good.

On Friday I went to an exhibition of art of a Venezuelan friend -'Clay. Wallpaper. Venezuelan Scenarios' by Andrea Moreno at Craving Coffee in Tottenham Hale. The pieces had a lot of subtext related to the current Venezuelan political situation and to V'zlan popular culture. I enjoyed that. It was strange to be in a place where about 30% of the people present spoke in Spanish with Venezuelan accents -and addressed me in sort of cautious English. Surely I look and sound Venezuelan? My ex-girlfriend used to say I wrote with a Venezuelan accent....



Mondlicht was a blast, it is more or less the new incarnation of Invocation in a smaller, more central venue (the basement of the Albany in Gt Portland St). As I traditionally had a little birthday celebration at Reptile, I left at midnight and headed for Archway. Now, I like Reptile even though the choice of music is not always my cup; had a good bit of a dance, chatted with friends, but by 3:00 am I'd decided I'd had enough so headed home. Could have walked but didn't; the 134 takes me right to my doorstep from there. Had some good conversations but also discovered that somebody I quite like (beautiful, interesting woman in many respects and from every other interaction I'd had with her, intelligent and mature) turns out to be a climate change denier. As I backed off slowly, the other friend who was present was asking her about some other conspiracy theory trope 'sure you also believe then that...' and she replies 'actually, since you mention...' at which point I disappeared back into the dance floor. 

On Sunday I met with friends at the Abbey Tavern in Kentish Town for Sunday Roast -which was very good, as was the gathering. At the bar I ran into a former guitar pupil who was on his first shift as a bartender at the place. That was a little bit strange. 

* the links are to Facebook events. One or several of them may not be public.

Another week-end whizzed past, this one a rather quiet one as I was trying to prepare and get ready for this little gig later this week. Apart from lessons and shopping, my only outing was to the Big Red on Saturday for robot_mel's birthday drinks (Happy Birthday, Mel!), which was a lovely occasion and of which there are pictures in this FB album.

In the week, I booked train tickets for the rather complicated (and expensive, but I knew that) trip to Italy with my sister later in April when she comes over from Venezuela. I'll be worrying now about the mad dash through Paris from one train station to another and whether we'll make it on time for the connecting train in the time we have. So it goes, I s'pose -I've found something to be worried about for a while, apart from my concert.

Also, although we didn't see any snow in London this year (but there's always April, when it snows here it seems to be quite late so people can go 'oooh, look, snow falling in April...'), in one of my ancestral homes, my mother's home town of La Grita in the Venezuelan Andes and just a couple of degrees above the Equator, it was snowing for the first time in recorded history two days ago...

A few things happening today, including triple-booking myself for tonight (amongst these, tar0r's birthday, Gliteratti and another birthday). Not sure whether I'll be going to any of those; bit low in energy still. I am, OTOH, going to a friend's birthday dinner at Arepa & Co., the only Venezuelan restaurant in London (actually, not entirely true as there also is Mi Cocina Es Tuya, in Crystal Palace but that is more of a local café, although still very good). Haven't been and have known the owner for many years, so it will be interesting to check the place out.

Apart from this, lessons, with some of the pupils (or, in this case, the parents) making me jump through hoops with changes of days and times. If I can, I will comply -I need the work; but I do feel that they sometimes don't realise how much inconvenience they can put you through.

Tomorrow, bibliogoth meeting and more lessons....

It's good to be rid of the bug. Feeling almost alive -except when I watch the news and I get that sense of impending doom....

I'd put something on one of my twitter accounts, https://twitter.com/theotherflav (I notice that you don't follow me on either of them, I must be more boring there than here...), about making arepas putting parmesan cheese in the dough -which works! lproven had asked me whether I made my own. Yes, of course. Making them with scratch with white maize is horrendously labour-intensive but these days you can get a pre-cooked, pre-husked white maize flour, Harina Pan. This, incidentally, because of the current situation there, seems to be easier to get here in London than in Caracas which is bizarre..

What I have found is that to avoid a lumpy dough, I put the (warm) water first in a bowl, a little salt in it and then the flour -a tiny less flour than I feel I should put, so it is not watery but not hard either. I leave it for some five minutes so the flour absorbs the water, then shape them and put them on a griddle on full flame for some four minutes or so on each side, so you get a golden (ok, more often black, in my case) crust. Then I leave them on low flame for some seven or eight minutes more. That's it. You don't really need to put oil (although I've seen this done) or butter in them, although a little butter will give them a little more flavour.

The parmesan bit: I didn't make this up, a Venezuelan-Scottish friend used to make them as very small balls with parmesan, which she fried -perfect party snacks.

Reading Eva Luna for bibliogoth's January meeting.

I thought I'd read that book, but must have been mistaking it for a different Isabel Allende one. I would remember, in any case, that portrait of Caracas in the early 1930's at the time of the 'Benefactor's' death and the late arrival of the 20th Century and the flood of oil money in Venezuela, all of which I didn't live but still was in living memory of many people when I was a kid. And the fact that my mother was a red head called Consuelo (as is one of the main characters in the book...).

Isabel Allende is not perhaps the finest of Latin American writers but she can tell a very good story now and again. I'm enjoying the book thus far. I'm reading it in Spanish, of course, wondering whether I should get the English translation and have a peek at what, if anything, gets lost along the way, etc.

Well, it's been a funny week.

Got a new toy. Yes, that one... no, not that!. It's fantastic so far.

My friend from Venezuela was going to come over in July; now an obstacle (a pretty big one) has emerged and she may not be able to come, even though the flights are booked and paid for, etc. Big boo.

Haven't been out at all this week, apart from a very brief outing last night to the Big Red to have a pint with fenbane and propaganda_tv -and run into lots of peeps there, including lucifiction and untermensch, which was good.. but had to come back home to comfort friend in distress four thousand miles away.

Today, a lesson done, two cancelled. Tonight, possibly Vagabonds, not sure yet.

I had written something in my other livejournal, in Spanish about the odd feeling of not quite nostalgia for bits of Venezuela that I get... not when it is sunny and bright in the spring/early summer and it feels like my home town Caracas, but when it is drizzly and grey with a murky low white-grey sky and it makes me almost pine for Mérida in Vz, a small university city in a valley half way up the Andes, in the outskirts of which I used to spend time with hippie friends in their farms some time in the 80s, surrounded by mist and drizzly, white-grey skies that hid the snowed peaks up beyond where the winding road disappeared in the white.. and all of this evoked by this moment when, looking out of my window you only see the London drizzle and a spot of red where the 214 bus disappears down Kentish Town Road...