Category Archives: Column

The Business With The Mine

The Business With The Mine

The Guiri Journals by

Santiago de Compostela, Spain There is a café here in Santiago called Avante! frequented principally by students and post-grads, whose walls are near-to-exclusively covered in Leftist memorabilia. I have overheard some Americans—most recently a group of Patagonia-clad boys from Colorado—excitedly call it “the communist bar” as if perhaps the First International were meeting down inmore

History Is Not Chronology

History Is Not Chronology

The Guiri Journals by

The Spanish expression, for being unfaithful to someone is “Puso los cuernos” to put the horns on them. My romantic partner one day wandered into the teacher’s lounge of her high school, to find her colleagues gossiping that one of the girls, Maria, had “put the horns on Alvaro.”

“Poor Alvaro,” someone said.

“Poor Maria,” my partner said to me.

The Spanish word for a shameless gossip is “chismoso”

The Spanish word for a hotshot, or someone who makes all the decisions is “El que corta el bacalao” or “he that cuts the codfish.”more

The View From Down Here

The View From Down Here

The Guiri Journals by

guiri (spanish): a foreigner, a tourist, usually a white person On Thursday nights here, I used to run an English language trivia which suffered middling attendance on account of I was not so good at properly calibrating the difficulty of the questions. The place where I hosted was and is called La Sra Pop. The staffmore

Caleb

Caleb

SOUTH X SOUTH JERSEY by

I had crossed a line. There was a moment before all of that happened where I had a chance to be a part of his family. There was a chance for me to feel like I belonged. To feel love and acceptance of a new family. To make my stepdad happy. To prove he was raising a good person.more

War & Peace in a Time of Quarantine

War & Peace in a Time of Quarantine

The Guiri Journals by

There were a handful of instances, circulated online and in the national papers, of Spanish citizens calling the police on their neighbors for sunbathing, but for the most part the roof restrictions represented the de jure senselessness of Spanish policy-makers, a rule citizens would vacillate between using as a cudgel against neighbors they disliked, and themselves violating in moments of indulgence, without ever actually getting the police involved. Still, it was long and confused and spiritually cramped period.more

UNLIKELY PLACES

UNLIKELY PLACES

TECHNICOLOR COWBOY DREAMS by

I get these little stints of sadness that wash over me sometimes. Stuff I can’t forget. Stuff I can’t change. The kind of  sad that keeps you up all night and presses everything real close. I’ve got an eggshell heart; thin enough to see daylight through. I’ve learned how to nurse it in my own little way.more

WORK DON’T STOP WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING

WORK DON’T STOP WHEN THE WORLD IS ENDING

TECHNICOLOR COWBOY by

The only things I’ve ever learned about loyalty, compassion, or real life love I’ve learned from folks with gnarled up hands and backs that don’t lay down right.more

Life in the Plague Times

Life in the Plague Times

The Guiri Journals by

It is a sunny day in Seville. From where I sit on the balcony, the street looks mostly empty. Through the windows you can still hear private people having private lives.  Everything is shut. Somewhere a dog barks. 5,700 cases and counting.more

WESTVILLE

WESTVILLE

SOUTH X SOUTH JERSEY by

Haley shielded her eyes from the debris breaking off into space. The sun glinting off Kaitlin’s fuselage. She leaned back and waved her arms. Knocked loose by the shock waves.more

Bicicleteria

Bicicleteria

The Guiri Journals by

Its hours are entirely discretionary, which is not so rare a thing in Spain. A glass of beer costs two euro, wine is three. No dive bar worth its salt has got a bathroom that isn’t always putrescent. Bicicleteria is no exception in this.more