Art, Books, History, People

Joanes or the Basque Whaler, Part 2, by Guillermo Zubiaga

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When we last saw Joanes and his crew, they had made their first successful whale hunt. Part 2 of Joanes or the Basque Whaler, Whale Island, picks up with the rewards of that hunt. And, along with the rewards, come the price of success as Joanes begins to overstep his abilities as he sees greater glory.

This is the second part of Guillermo Zubiaga’s epic about what he refers to as the Basque wild west, the adventures of the Basque whalers. The men who dared all to sail the seas and cross the oceans, looking for opportunity. It is the same spirit that sent their descendants to the American West, sometimes in conflict with the American cowboys, to find new opportunities.

As before, Guillermo tells his tale primarily through his fantastically detailed art. From the various ships sailing the seas to the cobblestone streets of a Basque village to the whale rendering station on the coast of America, Guillermo’s attention to detail brings the story to life.  His faces convey the emotion to pull the story along, especially as the Basque crew encounter the unknown in first America and then the fantastic.

The story moves fast, from the first kill of Joanes and his crew to their encounter with the natives of North America and to the climax of this issue when Joanes confronts the killer black whale. There is just enough mystery to keep the story engaging and Guillermo makes judicious use of historical facts to ground this fictional story in real Basque history.

This is a great sequel to Guillermo’s first issue The Flying Whaleboat. I greatly look forward to the conclusion in issue three.

I have two items on my wish list for Guillermo. First, it would be awesome for him to do a “Handbook of Basque Mythology,” similar in vein to the old superhero handbooks. Even one issue with the primary deities of the Basque pre-Christian religion would be wonderful.

Second, I would love to see a commentary track for Joanes, with Guillermo describing his inspiration for various scenes and people, where references images might be from, and what historical documents he is pulling from. I think it would make a great addition to an already wonderful story.

Art, People

Jesus Lizaso, sculptor

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One of the great pleasures of running this site is the opportunity it affords me to meet new people. And such was the case with Jesus Lizaso, a sculptor from Basauri, who was coming to Santa Fe, New Mexico, to discuss showing his work in a local gallery. Jesus doesn’t speak much English and, travelling to a far-off land, was hoping to find someone to connect to locally, someone who might serve as a touchstone to something familiar. Having found on the Internet that there is a Basque Club in Santa Fe, he contacted me about visiting our Etxea. Well, we don’t have an actual building, but I arranged to meet Jesus for dinner. And it was a great evening.

Jesus’ livelihood is art and it is a livelihood fraught with uncertainty. Each piece takes him hours and hours to fabricate, and he is good at his craft, having won prestigious prizes. Even so, he only sells a handful of pieces a year, so each sale is crucial and precious. Jesus was visiting the US to broker an arrangement with a local gallery in Santa Fe to show his work and act as his agent in the US.

Probably the most fascinating aspect of the evening was just learning more about how the art world works, including the role that galleries play in the process of selling and distributing art, and how difficult it is even for an artist who has been by all accounts very successful to still make a living at making art. We had dinner at a local tapas restaurant and it was also entertaining to hear the reaction of a Basque to the food being served. One comment that stuck with me was how Americans always need to make their food so spicy. Which was a bit funny, since at least one of the dishes involved chorizo from Spain that was probably the spiciest item we had that evening.

Jesus calls his work “solid poems”. And, judging by the photos on his website, they are indeed poetic. Typically of stone or wood, and often of very large size (he described to me the difficulty of moving his work internationally; the cost alone is significant), his works are often inspired by industry, involving gears, nails and screws. This type of sculpture really appeals to me, with the angular design and the abstract forms. Some day…

For those that speak Spanish, this video offers a bit of Jesus’ perspective on the creative process.

History, News

To Say Goodbye, an update

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Late last year, I posted about To Say Goodbye, a film by Izaskun Arandia detailing the evacuation of Basque children during the Spanish Civil War. Izaskun has interviewed a number of these children, now adults, as part of the documentary. The film is about half way finished and she hopes to premier it at the San Sebastian Film Festival this September.

Towards that end, the film needs further funding and Izaskun has started a second crowdfunding campaign. Here’s a link to the funding effort and a little teaser clip of the animation.

 

Euskadi, Food

A “Pintxos Crawl” in Donosti

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At a recent conference, I met a student, Ane Lasa, from the Basque Country, who mentioned she had taken her Finnish colleagues on a pintxos tour through Donosti. The tour consisted of the best pintxos at the best bars, as determined by Ane’s ama. Ane graciously shared the list with me, and I’m sharing it with everyone else.

  • Zabaleta taberna (Gros): Chipirón a la plancha (grilled squid)
  • Vergara taberna (Gros): Txopito (squid)
  • Cuchara de San Telmo (Parte Vieja): carrilleras, solomillo, bacalao, rissotto (carrilleras=the good meat; solomillo=an even better meat; bacalao=cod)
  • Gandarias (Parte Vieja): perretxikok, onttok (mushrooms)
  • Txepeleta (Parte Vieja) : antxoak (anchovy)
  • Hika-Mika (City Center): morros, carrilleras, bacalao, pastel de pescado (morros=meat, pastel de pescado=fish cake)
  • Martinez (Parte Vieja): Gambas a la gabardina (scampi, shrimp)
  • La Cepa (Parte Vieja): bocadillo jamón serrano (sandwich of ham)
  • La Cueva: champis a la plancha (grilled mushrooms)
  • Munto: plato de diferentes hongos-setas (mixture of mushrooms) (this is Ane’s favorite)

Ane adds: But over any list, walk around, check where most of the local people is (the ones speaking that unintelligible language), be open to what each of the (listed) bars suggest and enjoy it!

If you’ve spent a night sampling the wonderful delights of the Parte Vieja, what other pintxos would you add? And what pintxos/bars would you recommend in other Basque towns?

The photos were found on the web, often from the website of that particular tavern.

 

Euskadi, Photos

Bengola Natural Energy Park in Munitibar

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Munitibar, the town in the heart of Bizkaia that my dad is from, is small, maybe 500 people or so. It has 3 — soon to be 4 — bars and 2 churches, an anachronism from starting off as two separate barrios that eventually merged. I often think that they have it right, a bar/church ratio significantly higher than 1. (I think that the bar/church ratio in Los Alamos is probably closer to 0.03.)

Munitibar is small, but it has ambition. My uncle and aunt showed me a new energy park that is being constructed in the open fields just a bit south of the plaza. The park, Bengola Natural Energy Park, is dedicated to renewable energy and is meant to be a center that demonstrates how different forms of renewable energy work and can contribute to our energy production systems, including wind, solar, and more. There are exhibits, so to speak, of different types of windmills, for example, in an open meadow overseen by the village cemetery (in an interesting contrast of old and new traditions).

The site of the center and museum is on an old iron works site, which was later converted into a mill. In the excavations for the main building, they uncovered some of the foundation and stone work of that original iron works, which have since been incorporated into the building as an example of using water to power industry. They are diverting water into a collecting pool that will feed into the building to drive, I believe, a new water wheel to demonstrate how energy can be extracted from water.

There are multiple scupltures and other features with quotes highlighting the ecological nature of the park. Some of those quotes are in the photos posted here — I would be very grateful if anyone was interested in translating them to English so I can better understand what the message is. There is a stage, a sort of ampitheater, for lectures and concerts dedicated to ecological themes. There is also a very large stone sundial, though local kids have already defaced it by popping wheelies with their motorcycles on it. I guess it’s impossible, no matter where you are, to prevent that kind of stuff.

The park is still being finalized and the main building was under active construction when I was there. It was quite extensive, with some large exhibition rooms and what seemed to be possibly some conference rooms. It was originally expected to be completed sometime this summer, but with the crisis, it isn’t clear that the funds will be available to finish it off. But, if not now, I’m sure it will be in the near future. Whenever it is finished, I look forward to seeing how they present renewable energy and the ways it can be used to enhance the way we interact with our environment.

More information about the park can be found here.

Euskadi, History, People, Photos

Pasai Donibane

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I’ve decided on a new resolution, not for New Year’s, but regarding my visits to Euskal Herria. The thing is, I visit, I spend a lot of time with my dad’s family which I of course greatly enjoy, I see some friends (though not nearly all of them), and I come home. I don’t end up seeing anything I hadn’t seen before in terms of the cities, the countryside, museums, or anything else. So, I’ve decided to make an effort that, each time I visit, I see at least one new place.

I was in Euskal Herria during Semana Santa and, following up on my resolution, I went to see Pasai Donibane. With a good friend, Gontzal Aranguren, we left Donosti and drove to Pasai, which is actually a collection of neighborhoods on the outskirts of Donosti. This area is the big port of Donosti, with massive ships coming and going (though we didn’t see any enter or leave the port, there were ships docked in the port). To get to Pasai Donibane, you have to pay a man 1 euro to take a small boat across the water to the other side, where Pasai Donibane looks back towards Donosti.

Pasai Donibane is sometimes referred to as the “little Basque Venice.” This, of course, overstates things, as nothing really compares to Venice itself, but it has its own charm. We got there pretty early in the morning and followed a small path outside of the village up the hillside overlooking both the port and the ocean. Not an overly long hike, but it does go up a bit in elevation relatively quickly. The views were magnificent! We then hiked back to Pasai Donibane and walked around a bit. Being early in the morning, not much was open, but the streets, if you could call them that, were glistening with water, reflecting the colors of the apartments overhead. The cobblestone streets barely allowed one car through — there are more than one corner where side mirrors have worn groves into the buildings. If two cars tried to go in opposite directions down the main thoroughfare, one had to back up to an opening in the road to let the other pass.

An interesting historical note about Pasai Donibane: Victor Hugo, of Les Miserables fame, spent some time here in 1843 while traveling in Spain. Some say he was inspired to write Les Miserables while staying in Pasai Donibane, overlooking the nearby Pasai San Pedro and Pasai Antxo, which were more industrial. It isn’t clear if this is some apocraphical story or if there might be some truth in this claim. In any case, as anywhere else, Pasai Donibane has capitalized on this brief encounter with history by establishing the “Victor Hugo Etxea“, or Victor Hugo House, which is a small museum that describes his stay. It was closed when we were there, but for the history buff, it might be worth a quick visit. What is clear is that Hugo wrote his Voyage aux Pyrenees while living in Pasai Donibane.

Pasai Donibane is also known for some good seafood restaurants. Again, being there early in the morning, we didn’t take advantage, but it might be the perfect place to spend a romantic evening for two, overlooking the water with the bright lights of Donosti in the background.

Pasai Donibane is no Venice, but it has its own charm. The brightly painted apartments crammed between the hillside and the waterfront plus the breathtaking vistas from the nearby hills are a combination that is truly spectacular.

A history note of interest to Americans: it was from Pasai Donibane that Lafayette set sail for America to aid the Americans against the British during the American Revolution.

Euskadi, Politics

The Crisis in Spain and the Basque Country

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Of course, during my visit to Euskal Herria in early April, one of the topics that came up was the crisis. Spain is in particularly bad shape, with unemployment over 20% in the general populace and much higher for young men. The Basque Country is in reasonably good shape, with unemployment hovering in the 8-9% range.

It was interesting talking to different people about the situation. Some are clearly very pessimistic about the future, feeling that the rest of Spain cannot help but drag the Basque Country down as the situation worsens. They point to unresponsible government spending in a bad economy. One comment was that, since the Guggenheim in Bilbao, every little town feels like it needs its own museum. So all of these construction projects are going on, some of dubious use. This includes, in the opinion of at least one Donostiatar, the new addition to the San Telmo museum in Donosti, which is a glorified library/meeting space that seems much bigger than necessary.

In contrast, others point to the fact that, despite the supposedly rough economy, people are still taking their vacations and living the good life, including heading to the Mediterranean coast or even to Central America for vacations during Semana Santa. Clearly, in their view, the people have money to spend and they are spending it. It isn’t so bad, yet, such that people feel compelled to save every euro in the face of some great collapse. I heard this particularly from a more elderly gentleman, who likely has seen much harder times in his life.

Clearly, the crisis is on the minds of everyone and what the future holds for the Basque Country, Spain, and all of Europe is unclear. And, as with everything, everyone has their own views of what that future holds. To me, it seems that, as the economy in Spain as a whole worsens, it can only suck in the Basque Country more, worsening things there too. The Spanish Basque Country is an integral part of the Spanish economy and, as such, is not insulated from what is happening in the rest of the country.

Admin

The end of the webnotes

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When I first started this site, I got lots of great feedback about the articles and pages I was posting. At one point, I felt it would be great to channel that, to create a site bigger than myself where others might contribute and add their expertise, correcting mistakes or expanding on details that would offer more information to everyone. Hence, I added the possibility of people posting their own notes on each of the pages on this site.

With time, though, things change and I’ve decided to deactivate, at least for now, the webnotes for the pages on this site. There are two reasons. The first is technical: the webnotes involve scripts that can be exploited and are possibly one of the ways that my site is used to send spam. I’m not as much of a PHP guru to ensure that the scripts are always secure. They were also clunky for me to approve, making it simply a not-very-pleasant task to go through and approve them all.

The second is more selfish. The vision I had of people adding to the articles, expanding them, adding new details, never really materialized. By far the most popular aspect of the webnotes was with the surname list. While, clearly, I have a great interest in genealogy, these types of posts were the least interesting to me, and also contributed to my lack of drive to go through and approve them all. And I did have to approve them, as otherwise spam or malicious content would have made it to the pages.

I’m rethinking this process. Maybe I will find a better method for doing webnotes, or the equivalent, and reactivate them in the future. I’m not yet sure. If you have a strong opinion, please let me know.

Euskadi, Food, People

Two Young Cooks win Scholarship to Cook with Basque Chefs!

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TWO YOUNG COOKS WIN IV SAMMIC SCHOLARSHIP TO COOK WITH BASQUE CHEFS

Earlier, I posted about the previous BasqueStage contest for young cooks to work with world-renown chefs in the Basque Country.  Well, the 4th edition of the contest has just been decided and two new young men will be joining Chef Berasategui. The following press release gives more details.

May 9, 2012, (SAN SEBASTIÁN, SPAIN): Chef Martín Berasategui has announced the winners of the 2012 4th Sammic Scholarship with BasqueStage.  The winners are Brenden Darby and Luuk Hoffman, and they will join the kitchen of Restaurante Martín Berasategui, ranked in the San Pellegrino World’s Top 100, beginning in July 2012. They were chosen out of over 150 applicants in this, the fourth round of the continually growing BasqueStage program.

Brenden Darby is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University, where he graduated Dean’s List and Honors Society. He is also completing is WSET (Wine and Spirits Education Trust) Advanced Certificate. He recently spent six months traveling and volunteering in Southeast Asia, and also has varied restaurant experience under his belt.

Luuk Hoffman is a young Dutch cook, a graduate of the Hotel School in the Hague and a current student at Sterklas in Amsterdam for an advanced culinary degree. He has worked with an impressive roster of chefs.

BasqueStage is a program that gives cooks the opportunity to learn from some of the best chefs in the world, up close and personal. The Sammic Scholarship is sponsored by Sammic, with the collaboration of Martín Berasategui.

Basque chef Martín Berasategui has earned almost every international culinary award, including 3 Michelin stars for his restaurant in Lasarte. In fact, the high ratio of Michelin stars to population in the area is partially due to his nurturing of other young chefs.

Sammic is one of Europe’s leading designers and manufacturers of Foodservice Equipment, specializing in Food Preparation, Food Preservation, and Hot Temp Ware Washing. Longtime technological partner of chef Martín Berasategui and based only 30 kilometers away from his restaurant, this 50-year-old company has just started operations in the US.

FOR MORE INFORMATION CONTACT:

BasqueStage/DeliFunArt: Marti Kilpatrick  marti@basquestage.com +34 676 040 129

Sammic: Amaia Altuna aaltuna@sammic.com  +34 943 157 340

Diaspora

Eskerrik asko, Txoko Ona!

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A big Eskerrik Asko to the Txoko Ona Basque Center in Homedale, Idaho, for the very kind write-up they did about Buber’s Basque Page!  I really appreciate it!