Saturday, October 22, 2016

The importance of being Paella

First of all we must say that "paella" is the name of the pan recipient (in Valenciano language/dialect), very similar to "padella" that means pan in Italian. In Spanish the word for pan is "sartén". However, if we refer to the round and flap one to make a paella, we would say "paella" or "paellera" (paellera is rather used out of the Valencia community, because in Valencia it would be referred to the woman who makes paella).
Most of people in Spain make a paella that it's not the Valenciana one. The tradition on the way of making the paella depends on the different mediterranean regions and what grandparents would make according to what the land and sea had to offer.

In my experience, the paella would have green and/or red peppers (and other vegs), no green beans as in Valencia; with only chicken, with chicken and seafood, or only with seafood (clams, prams, scampi, squid, mussels). A true paella must be done outdoors on wood fire; that way and with family or folks would be the ideal conditions.
We must say that the most important thing in a paella is rice. The vegs and chicken/seafood must be present accompanying the rice and not the contrary.
Surely someone from Valencia might say that only the Valenciana one can be called paella :) But the rest of Spain eat paella too!
Actually,
in every town, in every family, the paella is made in a specific way, with its personal touch.

PAELLA VALENCIANA


Ingredients it may have: garrofón (a big white bean that can only be found in the zone of Valencia), flat green bean, chicken, rabbit, tomato,
artichoke, saffron. It's optional adding snails. Some add also sweet papikra and/or garlic.
//www.abc.es/viajar/restaurantes/20140722/abci-wikipaella-recetas-201407211914.html



Video 1:
Chiva (Valencia) - Watch video, via España Directo
Video 2:
Chiva (Valencia) - Watch video, via Aquí la Tierra

OTHER PAELLAS


Ingredients it may have: chicken, seafood; green/red pepper, tomato, garlic (some prefer with onion),
artichoke, peas, saffron, sweet papikra.



Video 1:
Las Negras (Almería) - Watch video, via Aquí la Tierra
Video 2: Nerja (Málaga) - Watch video, via Aquí la Tierra
Video 3: Calasparra (Murcia) - Watch video, via España Directo

Note:

- The ingredients of Almería video are cuttlefish, red peppers, onion, red prawn, tomato, sweet paprika.
- The Nerja video takes place at the same beach and restaurant that appears in an episode of tv series Verano Azul (1981). The owner of the restaurant (in the video) appears also in that episode of the series.
- The Calasparra video shows several types of paella.


Other pictures:

- Paellas made on wood fire, via twitter
- Paella with seafood, via twitter
- Paella Valenciana made indoor (blog with pictures), via twitter

Monday, October 5, 2015

Wonders of music reveals heaven in the visit of Pope Francis to US

Music discovering during PopeinDC

During Pope's Francis visit to Washington, I discovered some music composed for Junípero Serra's Canonization Mass at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception on Sept. 23, 2015, in Washington. Thankfully, the event was
broadcast live on tv... #PopeinDC.


Before Junípero Serra's Mass. PopeinDC. Source: usatoday


The music that called my attention is the one of the Psalm 96, that was composed especially for the Mass by Tony Alonso, who at only 35 is considered one of the most prominent American composers of liturgical music... as praytellblog reports... "My father is from Cuba, to be composing something for the first Latin American pope — who, ironically, will be visiting Cuba before he makes his first visit to the United States, where he will be celebrating a mass in Spanish — touches me on an especially personal level... No pope has celebrated mass before in the U.S. in Spanish".


Junípero Serra's Mass. PopeinDC. Source:
video

Five groups performed, including a gospel choir, the Catholic University Chamber Choir and a “Papal Mass Choir” of 90 participants selected from more than 300 people who auditioned in the D.C. area (washingtonpost). The choral leading voice was carried out by a smiling wonderful opera singer, Colleen Daly, another amazing discovering.


Orquestra and choirs. Mass PopeinDC.
Source: video

Actually, I fell in love with the wonderful music for the Psalm 96. This music has a trombone beginning reminding of some jazz song... all the music is like a wonderful film soundtrack whose notes of joy get to elevate the spirit, waking it up to the most musical soul.


Opera singer Collen Daly. Mass PopeinDC.
Source: video

Note: Psalm 96 seems to correspond to Salmo 95 in Spanish. Mass program and lyrics sources: popeindc.cua and usccb

Watch and listen Psalm 96 music: VIDEO

Responsorial Psalm 96 - Lyrics

Cuenten las maravillas del Señor a todas naciones,
Proclaim his marvelous deeds to all the nations,
Cuenten las maravillas.


Canten al Señor un cántico nuevo,
Canten al Señor, toda la tierra;
Canten al Señor, bendigan su nombre.

Chorus

Proclaim his salvation day by day,
tell among the nations his glory,
and his wonders among all the peoples.

Chorus

Familias de los pueblos, aclamen al Señor,
aclamen la gloria y el poder del Señor,
aclamen la gloria del nombre del Señor.

Chorus

Worship the Lord in holy splendor.
O tremble before him all the earth.
Say to the nations, “The Lord is King.”
He will judge the peoples in fairness.

Chorus

Some music during PopeinNYC

United Nations:
Another wonderful performance, during Pope Francis's visit to US, was the one at the end of his speech in the UN. A chorus of men and women wearing typical world dresses sang a popular Argentinian lullaby (romereports), "Duerme negrito" (Sleep little black boy), with an impeccable southern America black sound.
Pope Francis' full visit with speech to the United Nations: VIDEO (hopefully, the song should be at the end of the video. Not checked)


Rainbow angel... j
ust before arrival of PopeinMSG, NYC via twitter

Madison Square Garden: During the Papal Mass in the MSG in NYC there were also musical performances... Full Mass: VIDEO (not checked)
Picture: Harry Connick Jr singing at MSG before the Papal Mass in NYC pic via twitter

Saturday, June 6, 2015

How to speed up or slow down a video clip on VirtualDub

A. The full video
Example: if video fps (frame rate per second) is 30, and we wanna speed it up 5 times
Click frame rate: check "change fps to:"150.0000 and Convert to fps: 30.0000
1. Video: select "Direct stream copy"
2. Audio:
a) Select "Full processing mode" and check "Use advanced filtering" -> select "Filters": add this filter chain input -> stretch -> output
Select Stretch and click configure: ratio will be 0.5 if you want to double the speed or 2.0 if you want to halve the speed.
b) Select appropriate Audio Compression.
  Save as avi (video will not be re-encoded, audio will be)

B. A part of the video:
Example: You want the middle of the video in slow motion.
First check the video FPS and audio sample rate in the file information (example: 25fps and 44100, 128 stereo)

1. Select the first part (normal speed) and click:
Video: "Direct Stream Copy"
Audio: "Full Compression" and choose original compression (44100,128 stereo).
Save video (first part)

2. Set the new start point for the second (slow motion part) and the end point.
Video: "Direct stream Copy"
Frame rate: Change Frame Rate to FPS: 12.5;  choose "Convert to FPS" and insert 25.
Audio: click compression again and save the new clip. If you want the audio slowed down ->select "Use Advanced Filtering" -> Filters: make chain (Input' 'Stretch' 'Ratty Pitch' and 'Output')
Click on Stretch: rate=2
Click on Ratty: 2
Compress the audio
Save the new AVI

3. Select the third part:
 reset the video frame rate and turn off the advanced filter.
Video direct stream copy
Audio: recompress
Save video (third part)

4. Reopen VirtualDub.
Open part and append the rest (easy if you name them 1, 2, 3)
Direct stream video and audio.
Save the new file.

More info: link1, link2

Sunday, August 3, 2014

A happy summer

Verano Azul (Blue Summer) is a beautiful example of how happy kids can be when they play freely in nature in a healthy way during the summer holiday.

Singing "No nos moverán" on sailor ship. Source: @tve_tve

The idol (El ídolo) - Episode 15
I enjoyed very much this episode. It's about a singer, fans, fame and being oneself.
Watching this old tv series again is such a happiness... And this episode is all great. I'd love it had subs in English... It's about a super popular singer that comes with TV to the village to film some videos surrounded by fans. The two girls of the friends group are very excited, as one has even the poster hang on her room wall. The boys feel just curious and also excited TV is coming. The singer looks unhappy and fed up of all those "hired" fans, his manager just think of business. Sailor man doesn't know him as doesn't have any TV or radio set. During the filming of a video, the singer falls in the sea, but can't swim and the boys rescue him. "Journalist" of singer team publishes a fake story saying that the singer rescued one of the boys.

Two musical moments... Soy como tú (video), Te doy (video).
That same singer participated, with his true name, on a popular music festival (video)
Watch episode on rtve

Shall we not be moved (No nos moverán) - Episode 17
A real estate wanna build lots of flats towers at the coast village. The sailor man doesn't wanna sell his ship-house, despite he's been offered a large amount of money. The village shop men accuse him of egoist, because he's not accepting a "social" use of property. The unscrupulous "brick" men try to bully him by putting wires around the ship and, later, by taking machines to his property, despite a welcome ban of building high buildings. The sailor man doesn't wanna use gun violence as his barman friend suggests. The group of friends defend the ship with music. 

This episode shows us how with just a guitar and a song we can build for Peace. The first time I listened the song "No nos moverán" was thanks to this tv series. Just a few years ago I knew it was a popular song by Joan Baez (video).

Moments singing "No nos moverán": video (with sailor man on ship), video (when the machines start destroying the tomato plants around the ship). The girls of the group don't appear on the songs.
Watch episode on rtve

Other episodes I like
- The meeting (El encuentro) - Episode 1. Watch on rtve
- Do not kill my planet please (No matéis mi planeta por favor)- Episode 2.  Watch on rtve. Beach pollution.
- Pancho Panza - Episode 3.  Watch on rtve. Sancho Panza: Don Quixote's faithful adventures pal. Paella.
- Beatriz mon amour - Episode 7.  Watch on rtve. Funny scene in a summer cinema with Doris Day's song.
- The cave of the green cat (La cueva del gato verde) - Episode 10.  Watch on rtve. Trip to find a cave of a green cat, they actually discover another one. Not missing kite thread...
- The bottles (las botellas) - Episode 11.  Watch on rtve. Mysterious bottles appear with love messages at the beach. The importance of forgiveness and reconcile.


Monday, June 30, 2014

The fairy who built houses for the gnomes

The first time I heard the name Ana Maria Matute was when, being just a kid at school, I had to read a book titled Paulina. I remember myself not receiving that school task with much joy, as I thought it was not  probably like the books by foreign authors I was used to read from my little library at home: Books with tales by Grimm Brothers, Perrault, Andersen... Those little women, Heidi, Don Quixote comic version for children... Bugs Bunny's, A Disney comic book... and a few more.
The truth is I can't remember the story of that book, however her name kept in my memory... and one day I had the opportunity to know that amazingly she was a writer who loved the stories of fairies, elves, and gnomes; this happened some years ago when watching a great tv program about literature where, with other great writers, she had a talk with children about the magical world of fairies, gnomes, fantasy, tales, and the classics of literature for "all ages" children. Watch video
That was my first encounter with the writer. Another special moment was when she was awarded with the Prize CervantesSpeech (Español).
Though my encounters, so far, with her books have just been merely anecdotal, I can say that listening on the radio any interview or talk about her magical world actually causes fascination.
In a world where technology, phones and computers seem to be dominating the human mind, life and our closest relationship with the world, where children are having less and less space for imagination and fantasy, it makes you feel hopeful and grateful that a fairy has left such a wonderful legacy on her books, where now we can meet her and her magical world every time we wish.
This is a fantastic recent article in English about her: "Cervantes winner Matute: A child's view of Spain's Civil War"
I also came across with a wonderful interview on La Vanguardia, that I've translated into English, because I thought it was worth sharing with the whole world.
Picture: With her doll house for gnomes; Picture: With kids at a school

Ana María Matute: "Todo está cargado de magia" "Everything is full of magic"
Translation from article: 19 April 2013, La Vanguardia Magazine

In Ana Maria Matute's flat in Barcelona, there is a house under construction. It is a building of three floors of those with which children play, and it is half done next to the window, along with some scattered pieces. Across the living-room, on a table, there is a miniature reproduction of her work studio, a sacred place that no one can enter, "but it's like this, so you can figure it out perfectly," she says. The writer, probably the most important in the world of Spanish language, speaks at 87 with energy, whispers, waves her crutch, laughs with girl eyes ... The excuse of the meeting is the new edition of their children's tales that undertakes the publishing "Destino".  

A few days after meeting her, the Magazine escorted her to public school Palma de Mallorca in Barcelona's Nou Barris district, where students had read The green grasshopper and were longing to meet her. "I like dealing with kids, it's one of the things I miss most. I love it because they have no bad respect me, they speak to me informally quickly". Matute makes them laugh out loud, rebukes them, talks to them about issues such as depression, is interested in their home countries ... brandishes its lightweight crutch, not the one given to her by King Juan Carlos and she keeps in her apartment: "It is very nice with lights, cushions and all. I saw it to him when the Cervantes prize, 'we both wear crutches', I said to him, but yours is spectacular, 'and he sent it home to me. But I only wear it for special occasions because it is heavy and uncomfortable to wear".


At her home in Barcelona. Source: El Pais

Do you have children at home? 
No. Why ...?

Because the Dollhouse ...
I'm building it myself. It has still enough to build left... But it's not for dolls, it's for gnomes. But now they are not in.

How?
They will come once the house is finished, not before. They come, they always come. I have built them many houses, even in the forest, on the trees, even once in a forest in Sweden.

Now published again all your children's stories, one by one. Who did you write them for?
For my son. For children. I feel rage when they try they are considered texts for adults ... There are things in them that adults do not understand, these texts are only well understood by the little ones. Being a child is hard. Everything is against you. And you see things that others do not see, and no one appreciates you. But before they were even less valued, they were like pets, the Brothers Grimm did not write their stories for them, they are full of terrifying and horrible things, but better that way, because nothing must be hidden from children, they must not be treated as disabled, they understand the world better than anyone.

But they are stories that like also to adults
Yes, of course. To adults who know how to look at. Julio Cortázar told me, in fact, what he liked the most by me were the children's stories. But he had a privileged perception, he was a magician, you know? He came to meet me at Sitges because he had loved my novel "First memory" (Primera memoria) (1959). I am very old and I've known them all: Pablo Neruda gave me a hug in Moscow at a writers' conference and, holding me, he took me to several places, I remember I got so excited that my husband thought I was not going to wash my coat anymore.

You have two registers, the realistic and the fantastic. The arid Artámila stories and the magic of "Forgotten King Gudu" (Olvidado rey Gudú), so to speak.
There was a time when writing something unrealistic was very complicated. Still, there's always something magical on a text of mine. But what is reality? To me, a gnome is a tremendous realism. I have built them many houses.

Your father manufactured umbrella, right?
And my grandfather. It still exists the property, with the sign Matute at the door, it was also a metals store. It's owned by my cousins, my brothers did not want to keep on it.

When do you write?
In the morning, but not early. Sometimes I tell my children: "Do not call me for lunch".

And now?
I'm trying to make a new novel called Family Demons, but the dizziness will not let me, let's see if they can remove them from me, it's very heavy/disturbing, a new trouble, the machine is getting old.

But age looks good for a writer ...
Yes, you are more objective, you have more experience, and also you manage it better ... It's useful to you in order to sneak out of certain things. And you know your limits more.

But what limits do you have ... to write, I mean?
None. I do not put barriers to me. But while it's phenomenal to reach an age like mine, on the other hand is very sad because everything dies: you see in the paper how your friends get dropping , everything that was your world crumbles and appears as a field of ashes.

Your world are also those who read her now, right?
Sure, it's not that I'm completely knackered.

What is your first memory of life?
Me in someone's arms cradling me, I do not know if male or female, I'm very cuddled, and there is a lamp on the table, and a song is playing like a soft humming. My mother would say to me, "You can't remember that, you were months old" but I described her the lamp and I was right.

You have always kept the eyes of a girl, at least as a writer.
Yes, and as a person too, and that's why I have had many disappointments.

But, maybe, thanks to those disappointments, you have been able to write as you do.
It not only teaches the bad, but also the good. I am innocent, yes, I keep some from the young because every day I have a disappointment or a surprise , and that's not old people's.

What do you do when you get up?
Fortuny's crossword on La Vanguardia. In addition, I have become her friend and he shows me many times in the definitions.

Your first marriage, held in 1952, was unsuccessful ...
He took our child away from me in 1963, when we separated. In the whole world custody is granted to the mother, but here, with Franco, it's not. I was nearly three years separated from my son. Fortunately I had a very good mother in law, who allowed me to see him behind his father. The child is this gentleman who has opened the door to you, what do you think?

It was a time when nobody spoke of abuse, either physical or psychological. Neither anyone got separated.
But I did. I do not know where I got the strength from, I've never been loud-mouthed or bossy, I have always tried to go unnoticed. After three years I was already sick of my husband, but we were married for over ten years. Until I left.

How were your parents ?
They were right wing; my father, manufacturer, and my mother, daughter of landowners from La Rioja. I would write my novels, I wrote since I was five, but my mother made me knit before, until she realized that I was different because she was not dumb at all, she never went to bed without reading. My father had a small library and he often took us to the theater in Madrid, mostly. The other day I went to see the work in which Vicky Peña plays Maria Moliner.

Miller wanted to become language academic, as you are.
It was logical I became, but academics did not want... like Caballero Bonald, who has been very late to become. We are lifelong friends. When I was married to the bad one, he abandoned me in Mallorca without money. He went to Madrid "to fix it all" actually to mess around and to discuss at cafes, was his specialty. He left me hanging in a hotel. Camilo José Cela knew about it and showed up there with his wife. Charo, paid 6,000 pesetas that we owed from the bill and she took me to their house, where I was living for three months. And there Cela had Caballero Bonald as his secretary, we were both like two kittens picked up from the street. I was like her daughter, so I have always seen Cela as someone fatherly.

And then both, Caballero and you have been Cervantes prize ...
But then what we liked to read was "Pulgarcito" (Little Thumb. A Spanish comic), that Cela's son received and that we would take away from him at every opportunity. "What a pair of intellectuals we are!", we said each other among laughter. Above all, we loved "La familia Cebolleta" vignettes (Falmily Spring Onion. A Spanish comic). When the parents invited the boss home to dinner, to impress him they wore a cape and clothes that, when he arrived, made him exclaim: "Oh, what an Asian luxury!". We kept that phrase, and it's the one we sent each other by telegram when we both won the Cervantes. We have taken many gin and tonics ...

Now you must not take so many ...
The doctor says I'm doing well, although my son suspects falsely that I fall down in hotels because of the drink, but no, it is because of the mats they put under the beds, in which my crutch get hooked. The doctor told me that those mats have killed more people than Hitler and Stalin together.

You lived in a men's world. You were the only woman with all the major literary awards: Nadal, Planeta, the Critics, the National ...
Always. It took me a lot to have friends like Josefina Aldecoa, Carmen Martín Gaite and Ana María Moix, who wrote me a letter when she was 17. She told me she would wear a leopard skin, and I replied: "Well, I one of widower cat", and she believed it! One day, she invited me to see Cleopatra with Terenci (Moix) at the cinema. Now I don't watch so many movies because I've gone deaf. But yes, in the literary circles there were men, and I came and drank with them. They called me "the little Cossack", because I followed their pace. I have drunk a lifetime, with my little brother ... sometimes we would get drunk. Women of that time were, as I called them, re-embarrased ladies, they only thought about making a good wedding.

Do you think you could win the Nobel one day? 
Never. He already died in the 90s, the Swedish scholar who defended me, Artur Lundkvist.

You were discovered by the editor Ignacio Agustí .
I went to be discovered. When I was 17 I had written a novel on a graph notebook, Pequeño teatro (Little theater). One day I asked, "What is the best publisher in Spain?". "Destino", I was told. And there I went to. They did not receive me, and finally a guy told me, "I'll let you come in." Agustí was a whole gentleman, he treated me very politely and told me: "You must edit it with the typewriter" I did it, and I sent it to him; and it had not even been a week since that I met him on the street. "Miss Matute, we have read your book, but how old are you?". I was 19, and he replied, surprised: "We are going to publish your book, come one day with your father." We signed a 5,000 pesetas contract for life. My father said, "Don't you could give her a little more?". And Josep Verges, the owner, said: "It's a product that we don't know how it will be doing." Sure, an editorial is not a non-profit, but at that time the contracts were unconscionable.


Didn't you have then in behind an agent like Carmen Balcells?
She played a decisive role in that my back to write. Without her, Olvidado rey Gudú (Forgotten King Gudu) wouldn't have existed, which is the book I would choose from among all mine. I had been 18 years without writing, do you realize? Because of a very bad depression. Balcells asked me: "Don't you have anything?". "No, I only kept a half finished book" "Bring it to me." When she read it, she told me it had to get finished and she kidnapped me, she took me to live to her house until I finished, I got a great suite with bedroom and a work room with my electric typewriter, and a secretary downstairs who edited on the computer. I finished it in months. Finally, we had champagne and I was crowned with the crown of the King cake. Since then she represents me and everything has changed for the better.

Because writing is not an easy job ...
May nobody write to make money, because all we have dedicated to this we can explain things ...

How did Jose Manuel Lara, the founder of Planeta?
When I was nobody, nobody knew him. It was in a summer in the early 50, in Cafe Gijón, I saw a sweaty man, with no tie, he was there looking for writers among the tables, he approached them directly, he introduced himself, and he took some of them with him.

What was your happiest stage?
One of the most was when I lived with my second husband in a duplex in Sitges. We had three terraces and two fireplaces. We lived in swimsuit, if not naked. I wrote all day. I have traveled very much, my husband had a second home in Hong Kong and we went there every year. I've known all the world ... except Oceania.

And your experience in the United States in the sixties? 
It was extraordinary. I was living in Indiana, Oklahoma and Virginia. I had just get my son back. First, I was invited by an American professor, who said: "Of all the Spanish authors I read, the one I've liked the most is you." And I and Jose Aldecoa were invited, a week each. Then they chose me to teach for a year. All Spanish Republican exiles were in US, I met everyone. The one I remember the most is Francisco Ayala, who I fondly called "the devil." Students of those years still come to meet me, of my lessons of Contemporary Spanish Novel, in which I even included Maria Aurelia Capmany. At returning, my son didn't like Spanish girls, they looked really timid.

And if you were in Sitges, did you know the writer and journalist César González-Ruano?
No. That one was best known by my first husband. All that mob did awful things, they took money away from each other. My ex did not bring money home, it only entered what I got.

You never saw him again?
Yes, when he was already very ill in a nursing home. I went to see him and then I regretted it, because he began to talk bad about me to my son. He could not help it: he was mouthed and bad.

You precisely have known to reflect the wickedness of man in your works.
Yes, and mostly stupidity. Evil and goodness are very exquisite, but they have few representatives because they are the product of high intelligence. But stupidity is lavished ...

Happy childhood is talked, but yours ...
I had only happy moments. And other very bad. When a child misbehaved, a punishment was to put it in a dark room, without thinking about the traumas it could create. My brothers came out crying. I misbehaved so that they put me inside, so that they leave me alone.

What pleasure did you find?
It was wonderful. What I called the light of the darkness. There I began to be a writer, to see reality from another way. I called it the city of the closets, which did not reach the ceiling. I opened the drawers, touched the screens. One day, I picked up a lump of sugar, I split it in two and a blue little light came out, that semms to be a thing that happens, as when you put fresh fish in the dark, and I got marveled: "I'm a magician!" I believed it. And I still keep on believing it.

You never talk about politics.
I have been a Communist ... until I went to the Soviet Union, six months in Russia were enough for me to see what it was that. Today, it drives me mad the cuts and evictions, I do not understand how they are able to leave people in the street.

If I had to recommend just a book ...
The Bible. I read it as a child and then I have read then several: Protestant, Catholic ... it is the best adventure book that has ever been done. Olvidado rey Gudú (Forgotten King Gudu) and all my books come from the Bible. Then, Don Quixote, I was made to read it as a teen and I found it horrible, I got bored, I didn't understand anything, but, at 18, everything already changed. It is the first book which I've cried with, with Don Quixote's death, for all what it means: to let the madness go away. That is terrible. The triumph of good sense.

That has not happened to you yet?
It would be very hard for me.

You have fame of sponsoring female writers ...
Of that critics are to blame, who do nothing but see feminine features, or mine, in the books girls write. It makes me mad. They confused Carmen Martín Gaite with me, when we are day and night. "Primera memoria" (First memory) has nothing to do with "Entre visillos" (Between curtains).

Have you got on with the critics?
I haven't cared what they said. I have not had bad reviews either, but something worse: misunderstanding, to see how they talk and talk about a book of mine during pages without having understood. That sinks you. Theory is what from literature I have left. My classes consisted in reading books and explain them, very vividly, I approached what the writer had done.

What are you reading lately?
Henning Mankell, detective novel, the last three of Enrique Vila-Matas ...

Who told you stories?
My nanny, we were like their grandchildren and she told us stories of elves. Nanny Anastasia from Burgos. She explained to us that, in the small villages, in the fall, at night, when it started to be cold, the elves could not get under the trees, they were cold and hungry, and she put bowls of grain in the door so that those beings ate something, and a little cider so that they get warm.

You were a stuttering girl, right?
Yes, but it suddenly disappeared with the bombings of Barcelona. That anguish: you didn't know what to do, if you moved, you could be killed, but if you kept still, too.

How long have you gone to mass?
Until 16 or 17 years. I left it soon, but now ...

Have you changed?
I am a believer now. For ten or eleven years, maybe more. I don't practise because I can't walk. And because I was once at a church that it's nearby ... and there was no one! I said to myself, "What am I doing here?". I got up and went. I have an idea of God, one day I felt Him in a very profound way.

Does it help you to write?
Yes, I feel better believing.

What else do you believe in?
I believe in many things that have nothing to do with most people's beliefs ... Do you believe in coincidence? Well it does not exist; it only seems, but everything has a reason, nothing happens without a reason. Living, speaking, is magic. Everything is full of magic, magic makes we are here chatting. If not, we should be nuzzling in the mountains.

"El que no inventa, no vive" "Who does not invent, does not live" - Ana Maria Matute