Feria del libro

At Los Angeles Union Station on Friday: I stared at this mural while my husband called his bank to report a lost credit card. It is strange how we lose things on trains. It wasn't a great start for our adventure in Los Angeles.

Downtown Los Angeles. While waiting for Feria Del Libro En Español to start, we walked the streets of  L.A.

At Feria Del Libro: This man works for Real Academia. He gave an interesing speech about, yeah,  Spanish. At one point in the middle of his speech I turned to V. and told him: I want to listen to this man for a long time. He had a sugar cookie and tea way of speaking.  I started daydreaming about whispering in his ear: watchale! parkeando! troca! Okay, stop dreaming, this man actually told really good anecdotes about Spanish words. My favorite one was the origin of the word, California.   I'm not a storyteller, so google it. You will  find out why the Spanish named this state California.  Hint: It has nothing to do with fornication. Now, the man on the right took the conversation even further (sorry, I'm a lousy photographer). He talked about the Spanish we use when we text and the Spanish we speak in the United States. He is worried.  He wants to invent an app for our cel phones that will respond to any ill written text that says:  Aquí no se aceptan mensajes mal escritos. My husband and I have had a long discussion about the  Real Academia since Friday. He defends it with tooth and nail. I compare the Academia to the porn industry. Okay, bad and dumb comparison, but have you ever noticed how porn always leaves you with an empty feeling? That is, even though porn/language is exciting, it's repetitive and boring. I admit my vocabulary in Spanish and ahem, English is mediocre, but what if my Spanish were top notch, why should I settle for cutting and pasting words that already exist. We should  leave space for creating and inventing new words.

Paco Taibo II at Feria talking about his book, Pancho Villa. Mr. Taibo is my buddy! I normally don't like to speak to famous authors when I meet them ( I haven't met many).  I find it unnecessary to ask for  their autographs and to drool all over them (okay, I did ask Allen Ginsberg for his autograph back in the early 1990's--and for the record I did drool when he said: hey! haven't I seen you before?! How cool is that?!). Anyway, my husband talked to him. Mr. Taibo was really kind and humble!  He talked to us as if we were going to sit down and munch on tacos de tripa, drink atole, and talk Pancho Villa.

And he curses like a sailor just like me!!

This is for Mr. Blecua because I soak my tongue in the streets of California.