Last month, my family and I were up in Idaho to visit grandparents. While visiting amuma and aitxitxa (now affectionately known as “txitxi”), a couple of dad’s buddies got together at the Txoko Ona, their Basque center in Homedale, to eat and play cards. They’d planned it a bit, but it wasn’t an overly involved […]
Miguel Ocamica, the son of Ramon, a good friend of my dad’s who was one of the chorizo crew I posted about a while back, is trying to gather the Ocamicas of the world together. The goal is to establish a family tree of some sort between all the Ocamicas of the world. To facilitate […]
To Basques in the US, Nancy Zubiri is well known. Author of A Travel Guide to Basque America, there is probably no one who knows better both the current landscape of Basque America or how that landscape came to be. Thus, it is very fitting that Nancy has just launched a new project, an online […]
Having read Laurence Bergreen’s description of Magellan’s circumnavigation of the globe, Over the Edge of the World (see this post), I was very interested in Christine Echeverria Bender’s take of the same voyage, Sails of Fortune, partially because I found Bergreen’s account so fascinating, but also because I knew Bender’s would cast a more favorable […]
I originally wrote these thoughts in August of 2005 and thought I’d posted them here, but just realized I hadn’t. In looking back, there are clearly some errors in what I wrote, which I’ve corrected. Over the Edge of the World, by Laurence Bergreen, tells the story of the first voyage around the world, the […]
Jeremiah Saiz, whose ancestors are from the Basque Country, is a native New Mexican who has spent many years in Hawaii and is now living in San Francisco. In a blend of his interests and his heritage, Jeremiah had his new canoe painted in Basque colors. He also christened his canoe Aidegatxo, which in Lapurdi […]
One of the pioneers of modern Basque music, Mikel Laboa, recently died (Dec 1, 2008). Beginning in the 1960s, Laboa was a cornerstone of much that followed, from the rediscovery of traditional Basque instruments such as the alboka and the txalaparta to influencing even some of the hard rock and heavy metal bands that the […]
I’ve been meaning to share this set of links for a while and just thought I’d “dump” them on you before I either forget or they get outdated. 🙂 Last.fm, an online music station of sorts, has a channel dedicated to Kortatu and similar artists. I haven’t spent a lot of time with it yet, […]
Kevin Paul shares his tattoo, done by Tattoo 13 in Oakland, CA. It is a stylized lauburu in which each of the heads of the lauburu is an oak leaf. A great idea! Thanks for sharing Kevin. This, and all the tattoos, are in the Tattoo Gallery. If you have a tattoo to share, feel […]
Sunday, April 26, marks the 72nd anniversary of the bombing of Gernika. When I posted on a previous anniversary, I wrote that the Wikipedia article on the bombing briefly mentions that, in addition to Gernika and Durango, Gerrikaitz was also bombed. I was intrigued by this as my dad is from that town and I […]
