"Tango del Pecado" Calle 13

I first became aware of reggaetón almost a decade ago when my ceiling came close to caving in. My upstair neighbors were having a party. The salsa was rather loud, but it was a Friday, and I didn't mind. Not until they started jummping up and down in unison, and I watched the paint and plaster pop off the walls as the celing lurched with each leap. "No, yo no soy policía," I had to explain, with my large frame and Irish ancestry, as I knocked on the door and asked them to lower the music. It was the immanent collapse, not the volume, that was bothering me. Reggaetón is a loud Jamaican-influenced Latin dance style that might not be very familiar or accessible to Americans who live outside urban areas or who don't watch MTV or Univision. Yet it has its charms.

Calle 13 is a self-described "urban" duo out of Puerto Rico. Two half brothers, René "Residente" Pérez Joglar and Eduardo José "Vistante" Cabra Martínez sing and perform hit songs in the broader hip hop genre that show the influence of salsa, jazz, electronica and other traditional styles. Their 2007 hit Tango del Pecado ("Tango of Sin") merges a tango rythm and the base reggaetón beat with ingenious comic lyrics to create a smart catchy pop song that could most easily be described as Eminem en Español. As with that domestically controversial norteamericano, their socially provocative lyrics (mocking the FBI in one song and singing "to the North" (Pa'l Norte) in another will not please certain American listeners. But one need not approve of their lyrics to appreciate their musical innovation.

Here is a description of the video at Wikipedia.

Canciones: "Cucurrucucú Paloma" & "Volver"

Although I am a huge fan of Pedro Almodóvar, I cannot recommend all of his films. Some are simply much too dark, and Talk to Her, which won an Oscar for best screenplay, is one of these. The heroine, were she allowed to be one, is gored by a bull, and dies in a coma. A second plot revolves about a deranged male nurse who rapes another woman in a coma. There is nothing to celebrate or admire. Yet as always, Almodóvar's mechanical skills are top notch. And as is his wont he interjects this otherwise morbid work with a beautiful musical interlude. In a flashback we see the bullfighter and her boyfriend at a party. There the Spanish musician Caetano Veloso gives a haunting rendition of Cucurrucucú Paloma by Tomás Méndez which we can enjoy as an excerpt, available here at YouTube:



Another wonderful song, Volver, from Almodóvar's much better movie of the same name, (see here) is also available. Here we see Penelope Cruz lip sinking to the voice of Estrella Morente. But that is easy to forgive.

Celia Cruz "Guantanamera"

There are some drugs so strong that daily usage is contraindicated. I don't know what side-effects, other than tears of joy, Celia Cruz's voice may cause, but if the issue were potency, I'm sure the FDA would want to have her banned. Celia Cruz, 1925-2003, was, according to Wikipedia, (and here one cannot doubt them) "the most influential female figure in the history of Cuban music." Her clear and powerful voice had few rivals, and her sense of joy was incomparable.

Cruz's career had just begun to take off when the communists rose to power in Cuba. In 1960 she left the country, moving to New Jersey and becoming a US citizen. She recorded some 60 albums. She had a famous long term collaboration with Latin drummer Tito Puente. She performed constantly until shortly before her death from cancer. She was buried in Woodlawn Cemetary in the Bronx with soil she had saved from a visit to Guantánamo.

My favorite song by "La Celia" and her most well known among Americans is Guantanamera which means "The Girl from Guantánamo." The song is the unofficial anthem of the island. One of the most beautiful ballads of the 20th Century, it was composed in 1929 by Joselíto Fernández. It was inspired when Fernandez was spurned by a pretty girlk at whom he had made a pass. Over the years the lyrics have evolved to have a more topical meaning. The music is plaintive yet joyful and defiant.

The first verse is:

Yo soy un hombre sincero
De donde crece la palma
Y antes de morirme quiero
Echar mis versos del alma
Guantanamera, guajira, Guantanamera

which translates as:

I am a sincere man
From where the palm tree grows
And before dying I want
To share the verses of my soul.


You can see the full lyrics here. The simple melody performed with steel drums and flute is one of the purest and transporting of sounds. While the song may make you cry, it should be with tears of joy. Here is one of the better performances by Cruz available on YouTube:

Paganini "Caprice 24" by Li Jie

Researching the guitarist Francisco Tárrega, [considered the father of modern classical guitar] I ran across the amazing Chinese guitar vituosa Li Jie (here at Wikipedia) playing Niccolò Paganini's Caprice #24. I'm was so amazed I had to post it on Radicals for Happiness. There are lots of very, very good classical guitar performances by various people on YouTube. Who knew?

José Manuel Capuletti (Part 2)

Well, I got a great response to my prior post, and a lot of advice and comments. It turns out that the portrait of Capuletti's wife Pilar in my first post is not very a life-like rendering. Apparently, the portrait is a composite of Pilar, shown in Paris with José, post bottom left, and of the novelist/philosopher Ayn Rand, shown smoking a cigarette, post bottom right. Rand had written a glowing review of Capuletti in the November, 1966 issue of The Objectivist and she owned some of his work.

The first painting in this post, in blue above, is Percepción Onírica de Dalí, "Dalí's Dream-Prophetic Vision." One of the nude figures is swinging a slingshot. The Balearic islands, where Salvador Dalí resided, are named after βαλεαρεῖς or "slingers" in Greek. Dalí's influence on Capuletti is obvious. Dalí here appears to be beheaded, a touch of red along the line of his neck. The overall blue color hints at an altered state of consciousness. The second painting of the bather with a cypress is entitled Danza Humeda or "Moist Dance." The figure is simple and the composition seems random, note the clothes line. Why the word "dance" would be in the title remains obscure.

One critic describes Capuletti as Dalí with one tenth of the skill. Others praise or criticize Capuletti for his coldness and "sadism." See a discussion with remarks on other painters here. The consensus seems to be that Capuletti's best work is not available on the web, which is unfortunate. You can also visit Paper Tiger and, in Spanish, Mayrena.com to see some more on the artist.

Compare these portraits of Pilar Capuletti and Ayn Rand to the figure with rose and playing cards in Part 1.

José Manuel Capuletti (Part 1)

You won't find him listed at Wikipedia in either English or his native Spanish. You won't find him hanging in the Met. You won't find much of anything about him nowadays. But his work was collected by the Duke and Duchess of Windsor. He painted the portrait of the future King Juan Carlos of Spain. Ayn Rand praised his clarity and sense of the essential, describing him as a favorite. During his time he was compared with Picasso and Dalí. Today he is all but forgotten. He is José Manuel Capuletti, 1925-1976, painter, photographer and designer.

Capuletti's style resmbles Salvador Dalí in execution, but his sense of life is more positive, lacking Dalí's frequent fascination with the morbid. He painted flamenco dancers, bull-fighters, sports figures and performers. Most of his work is privately held. Books on him are out of print. Some of his art was recently sold by Quent Cordair Fine Art. Very little is available on the web. Above is a portrait of his wife, Pilar. To the right is his "Mujer de los Caracoles" (Women of the Snails) which is the only painting that has ever made me laugh out loud. Read about him at Peter Cresswell's Not PC Blog or the article on him at Aristos by Louis Torres.

See Part 2 here.

Johnny Guitar & Women on the Verge

In Pedro Almodovar's Woman on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown the protagonist Pepa Marcos (Carmen Maura) has just been unceremoniously dumped by her lover and co-worker Ivan (Fernando Guillén) with whom she does voiceover work. Exhausted and about to discover she is pregnant, Pepa takes too many sleeping pills and arrives after her lover has finished a session of dubbing Johnny Guitar, the 1954 classsic western with Joan Crawford and Sterling Hayden.

"Lie to me. Tell me you've always loved me. Tell me you would have died without me."

Both movies featue drama and struggle between women slinging guns as they ride. Johnny Guitar portrays murder, while in Women on the Verge at worst a bed is burnt to death. With music, color and melodrama the two make an interesting pair. Women on the Verge is Almodovar's best, and Crawford was never better than in Johnny Guitar. Here a few clips from each. My apolgies for the lack of subtitles for the Spanish.

"Lie to Me" Johnny Guitar



Pepa's Dub Session (Pepa oversleeps, and misses Ivan's break-up call. The Doctor tells her she's pregnant. Pepa does her dubs. She calls Ivan from work, but gets his wife, who having just left the insane asylum, thinks she's still young.)



"The Piano Scene" Johnny Guitar



Pepa, packing Ivan's things, and "sick of being good" forgets she shouldn't be smoking, and burns the bed, to Rimsky-Korsakov's Scheherazade

"Solea" from Almodóvar's "Flower of my Secret"

Unrequited love, a style of dance that combines the grace of ballet and the energy of tap...is it Rand's lost novel To Lorne Dieterling? No, it's The Flower of My Secret, the story of a passionate writer looking for just a little bit more out of life. One night, at a dance recital where Miles Davis and Pedro Almodovar intersect, she finds it.

As with many of his films, distinctive for their melodramatic plots and vibrant color, Pedro Almodóvar's 1995 Flower of My Secret (La flor de mi secreto) also features a dramatic musical performance however loosely tied to the plot structure. This movie tells the story of Leocadia, (Marisa Paredes) picured here with her elderly mother and her "crab-faced" sister, a writer of popular romance novels, who looses one love, and, in trying to switch to a more profound style of writing, finds a better. This is one of Almodóvar's best films, if one of his least outlandish. One of the highlights is Joaquín Cortés and Manuela Vargas's interprative/flamenco dance performance to Miles Davis' "Solea" (Sketches of Spain) which can be seen here:



Here is the trailer:

Ravel's "Bolero" from Allegro Non Troppo

Bruno Bozzetto's Allegro Non Troppo ("Not so Fast") of 1977 is a parody/homage to Disney's Fantasia. It suffers from the second-handedness of a parody, both in spirit and execution. The music is downbeat, the animation obscure, the depiction of life pessimistic, and the interspersed live action scenes, shot in black and white, a poor mockery of the Three Stooges. This film is thoroughly European, cynical and self-mocking in a way totally opposed to the American exuberance and earnestness of Fantasia. But it is art. The music can be grand. One can fast forward through the live action bits. It is certainly worth renting from Netfilx, but is not suitable for viewing with children. Here is, perhaps, the best part, the animation of Ravel's Bolero, meant as the counterpart to Disney's animation of Stravinsky's Rite of Spring.

Bolero, Part 1



Bolero, Part 2

Almodóvar "Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down"

Tie Me Up, Tie Me Down (Spanish Átame) was one of Pedro Almodóvar's most successful films, even given its original X rating upon its release, which sparked a lawsuit and the development of the NC17 rating as an alternative. The film depicts the story of Ricky (Antonio Banderas) a recently released mental patient and Marina (Victoria Abril) his ex-porn star love, whom he kidnaps and keeps tied up until she comes to realize his love for her. Considered risqué and by some feminists highly objectionable (one wonders if they saw the film) the film is a love story and features very little explicit nudity. The films joyous sense of life is excellently expressed by the cast and Almodóvar's vibrant signature direction. Enjoy this brief scene where Marina's sister Lola (Loles León) sings and dances at the cast party for Marina's latest film.

Luz Casal "Piensa en mi"

Here is a clip of Luz Casal singing Piensa en mi ("Think of me") from the movie "High Heels" (Tacones Lejanos) by Pedro Almodóvar, starring Marisa Paredes as a self-centered night club singer and Victoria Abril as the daughter she abandoned for her love and career. Casal has an incredible powerful and expressive voice. The film, a murder mystery, love story, and exploration of mother-daughter relationships is not Almodóvar's best, although it is certainly worth watching if you are a fan, or enjoy this style of music.

"Volver" 2006 Pedro Almodovar

Growing up in a small Spanish village, Raimunda (Penelope Cruz) and her sister had long heard tales of ghosts, and of the madness visited upon the villagers by the dry East winds. Years before, their parents had died in a fire driven by this wind. Now, returning to bury their long senile and helpless aunt they hear rumours that she had survived with the aid of the ghost of their dead mother Irene (Carmen Maura). Suffering problems of their own, Irene's daughters now become the recipients of her spectral aid.

This latest of Pedro Almodóvar's works, while superior in many ways to his last two movies, Talk to Her and Bad Education, still suffers from the same flaw they exhibited, a theme largely focused on the exploration of victimhood. Nevertheless, the film is visually brilliant, and the characters, while all victims, do for the most part overcome their travails. The film has what amounts to a happy ending, and does not suffer the morbid perversity of his two prior works. Fans of Almodóvar will want to see this movie if only for his characteristic use of brilliant color which makes each scene a chromatic adventure. Carmen Maura's "return" to the cast of Almodovar will also be a welcome treat for those who remeber her from the halcyon days of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown. While coherent and, with murder and melodrama, sufficiently interesting to keep one's attention, the story suffers from undeveloped subplots and elements such as drug use, lesbianism, and a dubbed but strikingly beautiful song by Cruz which seem to have been added in simply because these devices are what one expects from an Almodóvar movie.

While described as a comedy, this movie did not once make me laugh, although the scene where Cruz sings "Volver" (return), unaware that her mother's ghost is listening, did move me. And another gratifying scene occurs when one of the supporting characters, dying of cancer, does the right thing on a Spanish version of the Jerry Springer show.

I bought this movie on DVD on the day it was released, and as an Almodóvar fan I enjoyed this film as a return to the form he exhibited in The Flower of My Secret his best work since the excellent Tie me up, Tie me Down (Átame). While certainly worth renting, I cannot recommend that non-afficionados spend their money to purchase this film.

Here is the studio trailer from YouTube: