Carmen

I re-watched the Carlos Saura/Antonio Gades version of Carmen over the weekend. In some ways, it is very dated, visually-speaking. But still universal. I love the "While Her Child Sleeps" scene, in which the women dance and the camera is focused on their feet. The rhythm is...hypnotic.

And I love this bit of dialogue, which is actually a voice over from the narrator:

Levante los ojos y la vi. Era un viernes y no lo olvidare jamas. Al principio no me gusto y volvi a mi trabajo. Pero ella, siguiendo la costumbre de las mujeres y de los gatos, quienes no vienen cuando se les llama y vienen cuando no les llama, se detuvo ante mi, y me dirigio las palabras "buenas noches".

What if?

What if the Americas hadn't been "discovered" by Columbus? Obviously, the world would be a different place today. And the distribution and populations speaking certain languages would be quite different as well. According to this article (in Spanish), Spanish would be just another European language, 27th on the list, between Polish and Ukrainian, instead of being spoken by ~10% of the world's population, if Isabella and Ferdinand hadn't sponsored his attempt to find an Atlantic/eastern route to the Far East.