Aranzadi Visits Irikaitz

This article comes to us via EITb:

Aranzadi Society of Sciences visits Palaeolithic site of Irikaitz

Irikaitz is a lower Palaeolithic site full of information about the prehistoric man who used to live there 150,000 years ago. Irikaitz is the most ancient site of the Basque Country alongside Leize-Txiki in Arrasate.

Scientists of the Society of Sciences Aranzadi are working at the Irikaitz site, in the Basque town of Zestoa, a lower Palaeolithic site full of information about the prehistoric man who used to live there over 150,000 years ago.

Palaeontologists discovered that prehistoric men ate hazelnuts and lived in a warmer weather than the current.

Irikaitz is the most ancient site of the Basque Country alongside Leize-Txiki from Arrasate.

Archaeologists are discovering how prehistoric men lived during the lower Palaeolithic, over 150,000 years ago. The area in which the excavation is centred at the time being was apparently used as a workshop by early inhabitants.

These men lived surrounded by hazelnut and oak trees and ate their fruits. No remains of burnt hazelnuts have been found.

Unesco experts will visit the caves of Ekain, Altxerri and Santimamiñe in September to decide if they add them to the World Heritage List.

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Basque Poets in Edinburgh

Scotland and Euskal Herria have a lot of things in common, they are both occupied by colonialist powers unable to evolve. This is why I was glad to read at EITb about how these two nations are coming together through art. Check this out:

Writers will present 'Six Basque Poets' at Edinburgh Book Festival

The book is a poetic anthology compiled by Mari Jose Olaziregi that gathers poems by Bernardo Atxaga, Rikardo Arregi, Felipe Juaristi, Miren Agur Meabe, Kirmen Uribe and Joseba Sarrionandia in Basque and English.

The Basque writers Bernardo Atxaga, Rikardo Arregi and Miren Agur Meabe will present the book Six Basque Poets, published by the English publishing company Arc, on Sunday, August 12, at the Edinburgh International Book Festival.

According to EuskalKultura.com, the book Six Basque Poets is a poetic anthology compiled by Mari Jose Olaziregi and translated into English by Miren Gabantxo that gathers poems by Bernardo Atxaga, Rikardo Arregi, Felipe Juaristi, Miren Agur Meabe, Kirmen Uribe and Joseba Sarrionandia in Basque and English.

The work is the second volume in a series that tries to bring closer contemporary poetry by European authors as well as from other continents to English speakers. That is why Atxaga, Arregi and Meabe will start a presentation tour that will take some of the writers later to Manchester and Reno.

According to sources of the English publishing company, the six poets included in the book have played a crucial role in the development of poetry written in Basque within the last 30 years. The book was published with aid from the Culture Department of the Basque Government and the Cervantes Institute from Manchester as well as Culture 2000.

Presentation tour

The first presentation event of the book will be this Sunday in Edinburgh. In turn, Kirmen Uribe and Felipe Juaristi will present the book at the Cervantes Institute of Manchester in October. In November Uribe and Ataxga will visit Reno, where they will lecture at the Center for Basque Studies (CBS) of the University of Nevada.

Reno will host the first International Meeting of Basque Literature in April 2008, under the guidance of Atxaga at the CBS. The CBS will publish the book History of Basque Literature for the occasion. Among the main authors of the work are Jean Haritschelhar, Beñat Oihartzabal, Aurelia Arkotxa, Igone Etxebarria, Joxerra Garzia, Lourdes Otaegi, Xabier Altzibar, Jesus Maria Lasagabaster, Patri Urkizu, Xabier Etxaniz, Manu Lopez and Mari Jose Olaziregi, translated into English by Amaia Gabantxo.

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Junko Arantzazu Kajita

This is what Euskal Herria really needs in order to regain it sovereignty, to be known around the world without the negative press and misinformation that Madrid and Paris dish out in order to perpetuate their occupation of the Basque nation. This note comes to us via EITb:

Japanese anthropologist lectures on Basque studies in Osaka

Junko Arantzazu Kajita works at the University of Osaka. These days she is gathering material for her courses and researching into Basque culture in Donostia-San Sebastian.

The Japanese anthropologist Junko Arantzazu Kajita is an expert on Basque issues and is back in the Basque Country to delve into Basque culture. She visited the country for the first time 20 years ago, and has since repeated the visit quite often. "I love the Basque Country," she told ETB.

Rural areas and landscape attracted Junko's attention as she found many similarities between the Basque Country and Japan. In her thesis she compared Basque farmhouses and Japanese "ie" houses.

She lectures at the University of Osaka on Basque studies. Over 160 students enrol for the course every year, but Junko only has room for 30.

She is also learning Basque on her own and dedicates one hour a day to that task, although she says it is quite difficult as she lacks a teacher.

A few years ago Junko was converted to Catholicism and chose her second name Arantzazu, Basque town she loved with her first visit there.

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WW II Air Assaults

A new book uses the bombing of Gernika as an example of air assault against civilian population. This article published at the Telegram talks about it:

Two authors examine World War II air assaults

BOOK REVIEW

By Jeffrey Burke Bloomberg

“Guernica and Total War” by Ian Patterson (Harvard University Press, $22.95) “The Fire: The Bombing of Germany 1940-1945” by Joerg Friedrich, translated by Allison Brown (Columbia University Press, $34.95)

On April 26, 1937, market day in Guernica, German and Italian bombers took off from a Spanish airfield to try out new techniques. They razed the ancient Basque town.

In “Guernica and Total War,” Ian Patterson, a Cambridge University English professor, looks at the history of and cultural response to the spread of airborne military assaults on civilians. Focusing on a brutish tactic — still considered useful in the form of “shock and awe” — Patterson has written a rich and engaging study.

The idea of bombing nonmilitary targets quickly followed the advent of flight itself. The British bombed “tribesmen on the Indian frontier from 1915 onward,” Patterson writes.

In the 1920s South African, French and Spanish planes targeted civilians. Mussolini’s son Vittorio enjoyed dropping bombs on Ethiopian horsemen after Italy invaded the country in 1935. Patterson quotes his description of them “blooming like a rose when my fragmentation bombs fell in their midst. It was great fun.”

For the devastation of Guernica, Patterson cites a diary entry by Wolfram von Richthofen, commander of the German Condor Legion, which led the raid, and a cousin of the famous Red Baron. Richthofen writes of the success of a new strategy using first heavy blast bombs to destroy buildings and water supplies, then incendiary bombs to ignite wooden buildings and finally machine guns to finish off people and farm animals. The entry begins, “Guernica, town of 5,000 inhabitants, literally razed to the ground.”

Guernica became a target partly because the Basques resisted Franco’s Nationalists. It became an enduring icon largely because of Picasso’s painting.

As Patterson notes, though, “it was only one of a huge number of cultural artifacts — paintings, films, novels, poems, plays — to explore the idea of indiscriminate death from the air.” Auden, Bunuel, de Kooning, Riefenstahl, Verne, Sontag and myriad more-obscure figures — Patterson casts a wide net as he explores how artists dealt with the atavistic fear of what Proust called, during earlier zeppelin raids on Paris, “an apocalypse in the sky.”

The author’s academic side only occasionally muddies clear prose, in phrases like “a trope of visualization” or “the shorthand metonymy of wings.” It’s a minor complaint about a slim book of considerable rewards.

Annihilation became the norm in World War II. In “The Fire: The Bombing of Germany 1940-1945,” the German historian Joerg Friedrich looks at the brutal effects on the ground when total war came to German cities. (The book was attacked in some quarters when it was published in Germany, in 2002, for depicting Germans as victims rather than as perps.)

Friedrich’s tone varies from clinical to literary to almost lyrical as he first examines the strategy and methods behind saturation bombing, then surveys one city after another targeted for destruction. He notes the history behind each town’s architectural heritage before it is wiped out, comparing the result of centuries of building to that of minutes of bombing.

His statistics range from body counts to acres of destroyed window panes to cubic yards of rubble per resident; the stream of horrifying facts and figures can become hypnotic. Friedrich doesn’t explicitly judge either side for attacks that mainly killed women, children and elderly men, but he often pushes the reader to question the reasoning that sanctioned such slaughter.

Jeffrey Burke is an editor for Bloomberg News.

Those bombings "of tribesmen" were ordered by no one else than Winston Churchill, a sinister little character that a lot of people consider a great statesman.

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Vela Goes to Iruña

One of Mexico's young promises will be playing for the Basque football team Osasuna from Iruña in Navarre. This article was published at Sporting Life:

Arsenal striker agrees loan switch

Highly-rated Arsenal youngster Carlos Vela will be unveiled as an Osasuna player on Saturday evening after joining the Basque club on loan.

The 18-year-old Mexican striker, who recently starred at the Under-20 World Cup in Canada, spent last season with Spanish lower-league side Salamanca.

This year, however, he will experience top-flight European football for the first time after joining the Pamplona club.

Vela has joined last year's UEFA Cup semi-finalists on a year-long loan deal from Arsenal, becoming the Pamplona-based club's sixth summer signing in the process.

The teenager is not worried though about making the step up to the top flight.

"This level does not frighten me. It is a dream for me," he said.

"I played in the second division and now I face a new challenge. Osasuna is a good place to show my ability."

Vela is also hoping to get his chance to impress Osasuna coach Jose Angel Ziganda as soon as possible, with first-team places in the team's forward line up for grabs following a summer of change at the Reyno de Navarra.

Out have gone four of last year's strikeforce in Roberto Soldado, Savo Milosevic, Bernardo Romeo and Pierre Webo, while the likes of Javier Portillo, Nicolas Medina, Walter Pandiani and Vela have been drafted in.

"Everybody wants to play in the starting X1. I have the opportunity to have playing time with a team which are always fighting for the UEFA Cup places, and that is very important," Vela said.

Osasuna sporting director Juan Jose Lorenzo said of the youngster, who impressed in the recent Under-20 World Cup in Canada: "I want to thank Arsenal, Carlos and his advisors for their confidence in us.

"We think that Osasuna is a good place to develop and at the same time he can help us. We hope that he shows here everything he has shown at his other clubs."

I wish him the best of lucks.

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Txakoli

The little known Basque white wine called Txakoli is finally making it into the major leagues according to this article by The Chronicle:

Txakoli basks in the limelight

Derrick Schneider, Special to The Chronicle

Friday, August 3, 2007

Five years ago, only wine geeks ordered Txakoli. Casual wine drinkers had discovered Spanish wines, but few dared the daunting Basque word (CHA-koh-lee) naming this simple white wine from the green hills of Spain's Atlantic coast.

Those who tried it fell for the little spray of bubbles in the glass, the green apple tartness and the rush of stony minerality. It was the wine of choice for oysters and seafood dishes, and an order sent an "I like unusual wines" signal to the few sommeliers who stocked it.

These days Txakoli is a trendy drink. It hasn't ousted Chardonnay from wine lists, but it has dredged a tributary off the mainstream. Its price has risen with its star: A bottle costs $16 at a store, but a single glass goes for $10 at San Francisco's Bar Crudo and $11 at Bar Americain in New York.

The Txakoli landscape changed as interest grew. In the past, you found just one bottle in the United States: Txomin Etxaniz, imported by Jorge Ordoñez.

"Now there are at least seven producers in the market vying for the same consumer," says Adam Rieger, the wine buyer for Bar Americain, who sold 500 bottles between May and September of 2006 and 240 as of late June. You even see formerly rare Txakoli rosés and reds, made with Hondarribi Beltza grapes. White Txakoli relies instead on the Hondarribi Zuri and Folle Blanche vines that blanket the three Txakoli regions - the main Getariako Txakolina near the Pyrenees, the large Bizkaiko Txakolina around Bilbao, and the newly created Arabako Txakolina inland from Bizkaiko.

Grape growers in the coastal Txakolina regions face tough weather. The sweeping Atlantic rain pours almost 5 feet of water on the ground each year and keeps temperatures low even in the summer. Winemakers preserve the freshness of the fruit with cool fermentation in stainless steel and bottle it before the residual carbonation in the wine escapes, leaving the slight spritz that has caught so many eyes.

"There's a tipping point, when a wine crosses out of geekdom and into the real world," says Kevin Callaghan, wine buyer for Acme Restaurant in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. "We've moved beyond that with Txakoli; it sells itself."

Showing off for a restaurant's staff still contributes to the wine's appeal, and sommeliers push its food-friendly profile - Chez Panisse's wine director, Jonathan Waters (no relation to Alice Waters), says, "It has a lovely racy acidity coupled with a burst of sweetness like 7Up. It's a very seductive combination, especially with all that carbon dioxide." But if sommeliers alone could put a wine on the charts, we'd all be drinking Riesling, Gruner Veltliner and Cru Beaujolais.

Tipping points rarely have a single cause, but it's hard to ignore Txakoli's presentation and its effect on other diners. Waiters at tapas restaurants in San Sebastian, the heart of Txakoli country, start pouring the wine near the glass and then pull the two apart, finishing the pour with a two-foot stream from the bottle into the glass. The effect increases the bubbles in the wine, as does the special pourer the waiters use.

"When you just pour it into a glass," says Rieger, "it's not the experience you want. Even pouring it from high up isn't enough. You want the aeration a real pourer gives you." He tracked down the special pourers, which look like tiny cake stands as they perch on the bottle.

"It's really changed the experience," he says. "The wine is so much more lively and energetic."

Importers hem and haw about just how traditional the high pour is - outside of Rieger's staff, few American waiters pour it that way - but no one doubts that the flashy show captivates customers. "Because of the pouring technique, everyone is going to ask about it," he says. "At our service bar, I encourage them to pour it from high up. If we serve it tableside, we pour it from high up."

Even those who have never seen the high pour got a taste of it in the 2005 Saveur 100, an end-of-year montage of the magazine staff's picks. The full-page picture of a waiter pouring a silver stream of Txakoli created a noticeable spike in sales. "There's a certain type of customer who needs that push," says Acme's Callaghan. "And when they see it on a menu, they say, 'Oh, right, I read about that.' "

Jorge Ordoñez brought Txakoli to America, but these days most wine buyers go to Andre Tamers, the owner of De Maison Selections. "I tasted it here first, and then in Spain, but I brought in the most," he says.

"I became the world's largest importer of Txakoli." Tamers brought in 4,000 cases this year, up from 2,500 cases last year. "We keep running out," he says. He pushes it hard, getting it into more restaurants and bringing more bottles into the country. Tamers' persuasive sales efforts are a key part of Txakoli's current fame.

Spain seems willing to supply our demand. The Oxford Companion to Wine estimates that 500 acres of vines dot the three Txakolina regions, but Tamers sees growth on the horizon as the government and investors pour money from on high down into the area's farmland. "Txakoli has a political element, and many see this investment as a vindication of Basque culture," he says.

While Rieger thinks the Txakoli fan club is cooling down a bit, there's no danger of the wine sneaking back into the geeky corners of obscurity. Spanish wines have captured America - especially this bubbly little wine.

"In my career, there's been a slow movement toward an understanding that a major aspect of wine is fun," says Rieger. "It's not something to be snobbish about, just something to be enjoyed. Txakoli has that fun aspect."

A taste of Txakoli

As a rule, Txakoli is a simple, refreshing wine. Expect something pleasant but not complex. Many wine stores and restaurants now have at least one Txakoli, usually a white. The whites work well as an opening wine, while the red is better suited to mushroomy meat dishes. You can't buy the special pourers that aerate the wine and enhance the bubbles in the United States, but you can make your own version by pulling the cork, slicing a narrow wedge along its length and then pushing it back into the bottle. (If your bottle comes with a foam or silicone cork, use the real cork from another wine bottle.)

2006 Ameztoi Rubentis Getariako Txakolina ($16) This bubble-gum pink rosé smells of delicate strawberries, baked rhubarb and burnt sugar, but it has a creamy taste of green apples.

2006 Arabako Txakolina Xarmant Arabako Txakolina ($14) Honey drops on green apples and wet stones make for an appealing aroma, but the flavor is all green apple and spice. This has lower acidity than normal racy Txakolis, but it's still a tart drink.

2006 Gorrondona Doniene Bizkaiko Txakolina ($21) Pour this weighty Txakoli for the Chardonnay fans. Hints of corn, smoke and meat mingle with the dominant apple aromas, and the spine-tingling acidity can't quite combat the wine's creamy quality. Look for apple skins and pepper on the palate.

2006 Gorrondona Tinto Bizkaiko Txakolina ($21) This red wine, made from 150-year-old vines, oozes earthiness and barnyard aromas, but the flavor is dark cherries and mushrooms mixed in with lightweight tannins. Chill it a little before drinking it.

2005 Txomin Etxaniz Getariako Txakolina ($15) Cotton candy aromas with a mineral undercurrent transform into crisp green apple flavors with a sharp, mouthwatering acidity in this iconic Txakoli.

2006 Uriondo Bizkaiko Txakolina ($14) The delicate green apple aromas, intense mineral flavors, and searing acidity in this wine are reminiscent of Riesling, but don't look for that grape's complexity in this refreshing wine.

Derrick Schneider is a freelance writer and the publisher of the blog An Obsession with Food.

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Agriculture in Euskal Herria

This article comes to us courtesy of EITb:

The Harvests of the Earth

One of the most appreciated crops was broad beans which, fresh or dried, were the key ingredient of the popular gastronomy because of their high energetic value.

Although agriculture began relatively late in the Basque Country, during the last four centuries the products of the earth have become a stable foundation for the Basque people's diet, most notably legumes and cereal grains, not to mention vegetables and fruits.

Haricot beans, a legume brought from across the seas, were incorporated later into the Basque diet, as were potatoes and corn. However, red haricots in the north and white ones in the south together took root rapidly in our cuisine, whether prepared alone, with cabbage, or as a base for succulent and energy-rich stews.

Corn flour also gave rise to many basic dishes that were fundamental to the popular diet, such as fine cakes ("talos"), or "morokil", a sweet mix of corn flour and milk. Potatoes were an equally glorious discovery for Basque cuisine. Bizkaians are proud of the role that potatoes play in "marmitako", an exquisite fish stew, Arabans boast their potatoes with pork sausage, and Gipuzkoans flaunt their potatoes prepared in green sauce.

Peas, green beans, and other varieties give rise to soups and vegetable dishes, stuffed chard leaves in batter are a well-received dish from Araba that has become a typical Basque dish. Vegetables such as cardoons, prepared with almonds and a light smooth sauce, are the stars of traditional holiday cuisine, and cabbage is widespread throughout all the Basque Country, especially in Gipuzkoa, where it is used to complement some tasty haricot beans. Not to mention leeks and the exquisite soup made from the same, "porrusalda".

Peppers, used for sausages and dried, are the key to legendary recipes such as "bacalao a la vizcaína" (codfish prepared Bizkaian style), but not to be overlooked are the delicate and delicious hot peppers, one of the basic elements of the Basque culinary revival and of the traditional "piperradas".

The reigning fruit in the Basque Country is without a doubt the apple, primary ingredient in Christmas compotes, and of course cider. Several roasted apples could be a perfect dessert.

Chestnuts are another harvest of which there are dozens of local species, like apples. As in the case of cherries and walnuts, the cultivation of chestnuts has declined considerably due to the replacement of native trees with other, more productive, species of tree, however, they have not fallen into oblivion.

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The Flag Issue

Spain's Supreme Court decision to impose the Franco era's Spanish flag has reminded everyone that the francoist regime is still alive and kicking. Here you have this article from Times On Line regarding the flag issue:

Why Spain must put out more flags

Thomas Catan in Madrid

To outsiders it may not seem particularly controversial. But yesterday Spaniards of all stripes were angrily debating a Supreme Court ruling that the Spanish flag must fly outside all public buildings — even in independent-minded regions.

The ruling revived the divisive issue of Spanish unity as those in favour of a centralised state clashed with separatists on internet forums.

“That the Supreme Court has to intervene so that the Spanish flag can fly in Spain is a clear symptom of how neurotic and divided we Spanish are,” a poster called “Atanatos” wrote in Periodista Digital, praising the court’s decision.

Others viewed it as imposition from Madrid. “We live in a democracy and I think it’s unfair to make us fly a flag that we Basques have no good feelings toward,” wrote “Rizzo” on the website of La Vanguardia. “If that flag is placed in my town hall, I’ll be the first to go to a protest march or Spanish flag-burning.”

Foreign visitors are often bewildered at the sheer number and variety of flags on display in Spain. The national flag — red and yellow with the Spanish coat of arms — was adopted only in 1981, when the country returned to democracy after four decades of dictatorship.

However, it must fly alongside the ensigns of the country’s seventeen autonomous regions and two autonomous cities. Some of those still associate the Spanish flag with the repression of the Franco dictatorship, which sought to extinguish the country’s regional identities in favour of a centralised state.

In the most restive regions — Catalonia and the Basque Country — the Spanish flag is often supplanted altogether, bombarded with paint or torn down by supporters of independence.

At public rallies in Spain, still other flags are on display. Right-wing marchers sometimes carry the Spanish flag in use during Franco’s rule, which bears a fascist-style eagle with a sun behind its head.

Leftist marchers will often bear the red, purple and gold standard in use during the Second Republic and scrapped by Franco after his 1936 military coup that sparked the Spanish Civil War.

The Republican flag has become popular with the labour unions and in women’s rights and gay pride marches.

The latest ruling came in response to an appeal by the Basque regional government, which had been ordered by a lower court to fly the Spanish flag outside the academy of its regional police force, the Ertzaintza.

The Basque government argued that it had not flown the Spanish flag outside its police headquarters in more than 20 years. The Supreme Court dismissed the argument, saying that that did not exempt it from doing so.

Lest independent-minded regional governments try to get around the ruling by hanging the Spanish flag in a disused back room or dark cupboard, the Supreme Court specified that it must be hung “permanently” in “a preferential place, inside or outside the building”.

The Basque government said yesterday that it would simply obey the law, without elaborating. But many believed that the Spanish flag will be attacked mercilessly by proindependence protesters if it complied.

There are often violent incidents during the annual fiestas of the Basque city of Bilbao, when the Spanish, Basque and European flags must all be raised above the town hall. Ironically, it is the Ertzaintza riot police that are charged with protecting the Spanish flag during those disturbances, much to the fury of proindependence protesters.

The Mayor of the Catalan town of Matadepera, Jordi Comas, was charged this year with insulting the Spanish flag after refusing to hang it in his town hall.

That last paragraph resumes the repressive attitude from Madrid towards Basques and Catalans. Plus, the author needs to check his facts, the Spanish flag has a purple field, a yellow field and a red field; the one with two red fields is Franco's flag which is why it should not be flying in Euskal Herria.

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Las Vegas Film Award

This article comes to us via EITb:

Basque short film 'Perpetuum Mobile' wins Las Vegas festival award

The animated short film has received nine awards since its premier in the Sitges Festival, including three awards in U.S. festivals.

Basque animated short film Perpetuum Mobile won Wednesday the Las Vegas International Film Festival Award for best animated film.

Produced by the Basque firm "Silverspace Animation Studios" and written by Enrique García and Raquel Ajofrín, Perpetuum Mobile has won 9 awards since it was premiered in the 2006 Sitges Festivals, including three awards in the U.S. festivals.

Silverspace's team has worked for several years to develop this project in collaboration with the Basque Government and the Arava-based firm Sonora Estudios.

The film is about Leonardo Da Vinci’s childhood and the events that motivated him to dedicate his life to the arts and sciences.

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Eusko Flickr : Larraine: Leihoak Ere Eder

Larraine: leihoak ere eder
Originally uploaded by Goio Telletxea