#Coses de la terra

[useless-catalanfacts]

[kapustainu]

MIKU CATALUNYA!!

[no-passaran]

what are your favourite catalan movies?

I'm going to be very mainstream here but I loved Casa en flames (A House On Fire) so much. I think it's the best movie I've seen this year 2024 (not best Catalan movie, I meant best movie of any nationality). Btw, this movie is now available on Netflix with English subtitles! It's a comedy-drama about a family that meets in their holiday home before selling it and all the problems and secrets are brought up, revealing the character's insecurities. It's very well written and shows again how Emma Vilarasau is such an amazing actress.

Another movie I absolutely adored was El mestre que va prometre el mar (The Teacher Who Promised the Sea). I doubted on including this one as Catalan movie or not because it's a Catalan production with a Catalan actor as main character representing a real Catalan man, but the movie is mostly in Spanish since most of the events take part in Spain and not in Catalonia, but I think it still counts. Either way, it's a beautiful movie and definitely my favourite movie of 2023. It's explained from the view of a woman who wants to find out what happened to her grandfather's family and ends up visiting a mass grave being dug up in central Spain (context note: the state of Spain is the 2nd country in the world —after Cambodia— with a highest number of disappeared people because of all the people in mass graves during the civil war and the early years of the dictatorship, thousands of families are still looking for their relatives). It leads her to uncover the real story of Antoni Benaiges, a teacher from Catalonia who was sent to teach in the landlocked Spanish countryside in the early 1930s (pre-Civil War). It's a very heartwarming antifascist story about what a teacher can be, about children's freedom, and a reminder of the importance of historical memory. I really recommend everyone to watch it. (The movie can be streamed in Movistar+ and rented in many other international platforms.)

Other Catalan movies that I liked a lot are La Vampira de Barcelona and Salvador.

La Vampira de Barcelona (The Barcelona Vampiress) (2020) is a thriller with drama and some horror based on the real story of a woman who lived in Raval (poor quarter in Barcelona) who was accused of being a serial killer kidnapping children to use their blood in the early 1900s. I really liked this movie because I think we've all heard the legend but here the filmmakers went for a more historically-accurate version of what happened and how she was used, with a strong social critique, so it was a very interesting take on the story. It talks about very heavy topics though including children kidnapped to be forced to prostitution. (It looks like in some countries it's on Prime Video but I don't know what subtitles or dubbing it has been.)

Salvador (2006) is a biopic showing the events that led the 25-year-old Catalan anarchist Salvador Puig Antich to be sentenced to death in 1974. It's been years since I watched it now, but I remember when I saw it as a teenager it impacted me greatly even though I already knew the story. (The whole movie is on YouTube but without English subtitles, for streaming platforms it's on Filmin but it looks like it doesn't have English subtitles either, but there are downloadable subtitles online.)

[spacespheal]

Twitter requests with catalan Miku:

[girlwikipedia]

tapestry of creation, 11th century, girona

[quatregats]

Vale, prou, aquí la qüestió realment important:

[minglana]

and another win for this man........ he actually explains the recipe in catalan, with a balearic accent (not sure if mallorcan or menorcan, i am not that knowleadgeable in eastern catalan)......

In this video he is cooking conill amb cebes (rabbit with onions).

Transcription and recipe under the cut

For two people: -1/2 a rabbit (or 3/4) -5 onions, the sweet ones better -4 cloves of garlic -4 bay leaves -olive oil -a glass of white wine -half a glass of water -salt and pepper Chop up the rabbit, and heat up a deep pan (in his case he uses a traditional clay pan) with olive oil. Once heated, add the rabbit and salt; cook until golden brown, and set aside in another container. Thinly slice the onions. Since they cook down a lot, he uses 5 onions. Add them to the pan, along with the salt, bay leaves, garlic, and black pepper. Stir gently until caramelized and golden brown. Add the rabbit again, along with the white wine and water, and let it gently simmer for about 20 minutes.

[Tiktok video by user @/petes.pans: Señoras y señores, welcome to this great taleotic culinary event from Menorca.

Plats de Llegenda: today I'm cooking conill amb ceba, a Mallorcan/Menorcan rabbit dish with onions, right amongst these talayots, ancient stone structures built by bronze age civilizations in the Balearic Islands. Just like these monumental stones, the recipe has stood the test of time. Simple ingredients cooked slowly, but built to last. This dish is so deeply rooted in the islands' culture, English just won't do today

Primer fem tallades de conill així. Ja podem encendre el foc i posarem sa greixonera amb s'oli i començarem a daurar es conill. Un poquet de sal, i el retirarem i la posarem allà. La ceba la tallo primeta. Posarem 5 cebes perque sa ceba minva molt, torna molt poqueta cosa. Hem d'anar remenant poc a poc, sino se cremaria. S'ha de posar sal, un parell de fulles de llorer, pebre negre, i un parell d'alls. Ja que sa ceba està a punt, posem es conill a dins sa ceba, una remenadeta, un poc de vi blanc, un poc d'aigo, i això s'ha d'anar bullint, confitant, uns 20 minuts.

Això ja està cuit! Ja podem emplatar, si ho trobeu bé. Bon profit! Espero que vos agradi.]

[perqueheplorat]

Setembre del 2024!

[cinnabargirl]

Bon dia pel matí!

[useless-catalanfacts]

Did you see the Mike Hatsune trend on twitter? So many Catalan Mikus!!!

I hadn't seen it! They're so cool!!

(And by the way, Miku is already Catalan 😉 the software used for her voice —Vocaloid— was created by the Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona)

Say in the comments which one is your favourite!

Miku dancing sardanes wearing traditional clothes (pubilla outfit). By @/itsnailasart

Miku in a calçotada! By @/miden808

Miku castellera and pubilla Miku. By @/SpaceSpheal (also on Tumblr @spacespheal!)

Modern girl Miku who is a monitora de cau. By @/enosst

Miku castellera!! By @/TaySokka

Miku dancing sardanes. By @/NoddlsChikk

Miku with a Tió de Nadal. By @/gatomonogordo

Miku with the dragon, Mic and a calçot. By @/mewvy_y.

Miku dressed as castanyera! By @/lau_artwork

I've reached the photo limit for a Tumblr post but there's more! Say which one is your favourite in the tags. I can't choose just one but I'd say the 1st one, SpaceSpheal's, and the castanyera.

[guillemelgat]

Here's another song translation, by Mallorcan band Reïna! Since they're from the Balearic Islands and I don't think I've made a post about that dialect of Catalan I thought this would be an interesting chance to do that as well. But also the song is just really pretty, so I hope you guys enjoy!

Ja m’ha quedat clar que ara vols ser tu es dolent It’s become clear to me that now you want to be the bad guy I que m’escoltes per a no estar tot sol amb es teus pensaments And that you listen to me not to be all alone with your thoughts I que tots es camins que no fèiem encara hi són And that all the roads we never took are still there Tot i que ara semblin més llargs i torts Even though now they seem longer and more twisted

Ja m’ha quedat clar que no tenc clar si t’entenc It’s become clear to me that I’m not clear if I understand you I que te m’acostes per no estar tot sol en es mals moments And that you get close to me not to be all alone in the worst moments I que tot es temps que teníem s’ha fos And that all the time we had has melted Entre es dits que ara semblen més llargs i torts Between fingers that now seem longer and more twisted

[ TORNADA: Ets tan dolç que per dins me mata You’re so sweet that it kills me inside Te tenc tan a prop que sempre m’enrampes I hold you so close that you always give me a shock És tan fort que ja no té importància It’s so much that it doesn’t matter anymore Ets tan dolent que m’arriba a fer gràcia You’re so bad that it’s become funny to me ]

Ja m’ha quedat clar que ara ets tu es dolent It’s become clear to me that now you’re the bad guy I que m’enyores només quan saps que ho has fet malament And that you only miss me when you know you’ve done a bad job I maldament mos enteníem, ara ja no And even though we used to understand each other, we don’t now I d'ençà es dies crec que tornen més llargs i tot And from hereon out I think the days are becoming longer and all

[ TORNADA ]

Here are some features of Balearic/Mallorcan Catalan which you can hear in the song:

l'article salat - instead of el/la/els/les it's es/sa/es/ses

different distributions/realization of the neutral vowels - /ə/ can also be pronounced in stressed syllables (generally where you would have /ε/ in Central Catalan) and there's similar vowel reduction to Valencian of /ɔ/ and /o/ to /o/ rather than /u/

Using the pronomial clitics me/te/etc. which in Central Catalan usually only come after the verb before verbs instead of the forms em/et/etc. - also note mos (= ens/nos) which also occurs in lots of other dialects of Catalan

importància and gràcia are pronounced importanci and graci (this is common with a lot of words ending in -cia)

tenc = tinc

maldament = encara que

Bonus: Pronouncing /k/ as palatal /c/ - this is much less common, but the lead singer of Reïna does it which I thought was interesting (in contrast to Maria Jaume who doesn't seem to)

[no-passaran]

can you explain the post about catalan self-hatred

Centuries of occupation and being told we are useless, ignorant, and cringy and thus for our own good we should abandon our culture, language, accent, identity, everything that shows what our culture is (or was, if they succeed) except for very few isolated items that can be folklorized (isolated from our very alive culture, which give them sense, and shown as a curiosity or a relic of an old gone past, or simply as one isolated "fun" addition to Spanish culture, which didn't originate it and which doesn't understand it) and monetized to be sold as Spanish (see: Madrid restaurants selling something they call "paella" and which is really an "arròs de mar" but they have re-made it to suit the taste of tourists and that they will advertise with Spanish flags and sevillana drawings and commercialise as "typical Spanish", completely separating it from its roots and without even knowing what the word "paella" means, so that tourists can consume it without even knowing what culture it's from and what language that word is in), hearing how cringy we Catalans are vs how cool we would look like if we became fully Spanish (and fully Spanish means abandoning Catalanity), all of these happening for generations and permeating literature, TV, popular jokes, pop culture, laws, even church leaders speaking it in mass) etc. well, it does end up affecting you.

Generation after generation of this means that we have a very deeply rooted self-hatred. And it's so normalized that we don't even realise it. Self-hatred is a term used in sociolinguistics that means precisely that, having interiorized the bigotry against your own group. In our case, it means Catalan people who are Catalanophobic, often without realising it, or thinking that it's justified because it would be ridiculous to think otherwise. For example, when Catalans say that it's true that our existence is useless and it's a shame that we were born in Catalonia and that Catalan is still alive because everything would be easier if we spoke only Spanish, which they see as a superior and international language, or say that we shouldn't have Catalan written in public where tourists can see it. As you can see, this is very connected with imperialism. All of us are Catalanophobic. I don't think there is even one Catalan person who is not Catalanophobic, because we are raised in a deeply Catalanophobic legal, political, and social system. The difference relies on how aware of it are we and how much we are willing to rethink it. For most people, they're not willing to rethink it because they believe it's right, and that it would be nonsensical to imagine that we are equal to Spanish speakers or deserve the same rights.

That post was a screenshot I took of a comment on Instagram. It's a video of some Catalan people talking and joking around, everything very innocent and nice, and someone left this comment (in Catalan) saying "why do you speak in such a strong Catalan accent? It makes my blood boil, and I am Catalan, so imagine..." (implying that "if it bothers me, a Catalan, that you are so visibly Catalan, imagine how much it must bother someone who isn't Catalan. Thus you should correct it").

This is something that I have been told countless times in my life. In high school, my best friend always used to make fun of me when I said something in Spanish because I have a strong Catalan accent. She would repeat my words after me exaggerating the accent to make it ridiculous and laughable, and would laugh at how bad it is and how "rural" it makes me sound (note: I am not from a rural accent nor speak an accent of Catalan from a rural area, it's that having a Catalan accent in Spanish is seen as being uneducated and "from the provinces"). The thing is tho: she had the same accent. She does not speak any better than me. She also had told me many times about how much she dislikes going to visit her dad's family in southern Spain because the whole town laughs at her for having a Catalan accent and that some kids have insulted her for being from Catalonia, and even her dad (born and raised in that town of southern Spain but who has been living in Catalonia for decades) gets made fun of and receives hate speech for being Catalan now. But so many people always look for someone else, someone who is more visibly Catalan for whatever reason, and give them the same bigotry that they have received. As if that will redeem them somehow, or distract from their own "faults"— and I'm not using the word "fault" just because, that's what we feel but don't say out loud, except when someone slips like that Valencian politician who started a speech by apologizing in case she "slips and says a word in Valencian" because "sadly it's my mother tongue, I have this defect". (note: Valencian and Catalan are two names for the same language). Some people on the internet complained because she said the quiet part out loud, but how many of those people don't act like that in their everyday lives, simply refusing to state it so clearly that that's how they see it?

It's to be expected to get these comments from Spanish people. When I was 15, I was part of a programme for students and we had to go to Madrid for a meeting of all the students in the state of Spain who were being given this scholarship, and I was the only Catalan and the rest of teens spent most of the time making fun of me and my accent. But what I remember the most is that one of them was nice to me, and he talked to me having normal conversations (the others only said bigoted things against Catalonia and against Barça team and tried to get me to talk about bullfighting, knowing that it's illegal in Catalonia, to make me feel excluded), but even this nice boy at one point said out of the blue "you really can't hide that you're Catalan!". It would be nice to answer "so? Why do I have to hide it?" but the thing is that I had tried my best, not to hide it 100% maybe, but to not make it easy to see. For example, when we introduced ourselves, everyone said our name and where we're from, I was aware that I should say Barcelona (even though I'm not from the city itself) instead of Catalonia. After that, I tried taking some online lessons I found on YouTube on how to have a Castilian accent, but I never managed. It would be useless anyway, just a few years later I was on Erasmus and when I introduced myself to the other students (I had literally only said "hello my name is Elna") the two Spanish students laughed and one of them said while laughing "that's a very Catalan name, like very very very Catalan, isn't it?", like it was a funny joke.

So yeah, it's whatever to get it from Spanish people and Spanish-speakers in Catalonia (I mean, to be fair, it's not whatever when it means you can get a harsher sentence for the same trial if you spoke Catalan in the court, that you might get arrested or mistreated by the police if you spoke to them in Catalan, that you can get kicked out of the doctor's office for speaking in Catalan, etc and believe me I have had my share of discrimination from doctors for this very reason) but it is so much more insidious when it comes from ourselves. And it's painted not as bigotry but as "common sense" or just "not being cringy". I'm tired of my existence being considered cringe! I'm tired that if I speak about what happens to us it's seen as cringe and "distracting from things that are actually important" (because we are useless to the world!)! Or if I say more autochthonous expressions that don't have a direct translation to Spanish to get told I'm like a grandma and I'm cringe! I'm even tired of the well meaning ones, some time ago a friend's Spanish-speaker friend heard me talk to another friend and said "aw that's cute, you speak Catalan, it's like you're grandmas". Or that children will get bullied for celebrating the Castanyada instead of Halloween because it's cringe. I love the Castanyada and I will say it now, I spent my whole high school years pretending like I don't celebrate it. I do! I eat panellets that my aunt makes, and sometimes I make them too, and I go with my family friends in front of the fireplace, and we roast chestnuts and we sing Marrameu torra castanyes, and we like it! And I wouldn't change it for anything in the world. And if that means everyone laughs at me and says I'm cringe and elderly, then so be it. I spent long enough hiding from my own people. I am so so so so tired.

I heard this sentence once: "what Franco couldn't manage to finish, we will do it ourselves". They couldn't eliminate us with violent force, but the long route of psychological war makes us be our own enemies and our own executioner. As has already happened so much more in the part of Catalonia under French rule, and all other nations still nowadays under French rule.

Here's what I did and helped me very much. Every time I have a Catalanophobic thought or I think as myself as lesser than for something related to being Catalan, I imagine a tiny Franco inside my head and I shoot him. This makes me take a moment to pay attention to what I had thought and that I don't want it, and do better in the future. Being conscious is the only way to learn self-respect.

[spacespheal]

Cada 31 d'agost, la Miku s'aixeca ben d'hora, ben d'hora per veure el seu nom a la llista de súpers que fan anys aquell dia

[quatregats]

Però jo sabré que és mentida

I tu sabràs

que no és

Veritat

[minglana]

PROU AGRESSIONS I DISCRIMINACIONS ALS HOMOSEXUALS NO T'AMAGUIS: LA TEVA POR ÉS LA SEVA FORÇA

ENOUGH AGRESSIONS AND DISCRIMINATION TOWARDS HOMOSEXUALS DON'T HIDE: YOUR FEAR IS THEIR STRENGTH

1979 poster by FAGC (Catalan Gay Liberation Front) and JAG (Youth for Gay Liberation)

In 1979, the articles that criminalized “homosexual acts” in the Spanish Law on Social Dangerousness and Rehabilitation were repealed. In 1983, articles in the Law on Social Scandal were repealed. Some of these articles included “homosexual acts”, which could be kissing in public, or even holding hands. This law was completely repealed in 1989, while the first law did not see its end until 1995. While not the first homosexual assocation, FAGC was the first to fight against these laws during and immediately after the dictatorship.

[source] [more posters here]