I have been a gigantic Rolling Stones fan since approximately the Spanish-American War.
The thing about Hemingway that people forget is that all the stuff he did was at a time where people weren't traveling that much. At 19 he travels to Italy. He goes to the Spanish Civil War. He goes to China he goes to Africa so at that time to travel that much is really incredible.
I took Spanish in high school and I didn't do too well in it. My Spanish teacher told me not to go on with Spanish anymore so I was discouraged a little bit.
The only consistent hobby I've had is studying Spanish and French because of some delusion of grandeur to work around the world. I love sports but usually I'm looking for the next job.
I could speak Spanish fluently growing up but I'm so out of practice and I have such a tremendous respect for songwriting in the Spanish language.
And it is because a series of elements in Spanish life which operate today the same way as they did in the times of Blanco White made obvious my relationship with him based on a similarity in Spain's condition.
When I hit a block regardless of what I am writing what the subject matter is or what's going on in the plot I go back and I read Pablo Neruda's poetry. I don't actually speak Spanish so I read it translation. But I always go back to Neruda. I don't know why but it calms me calms my brain.
From my music training I knew that some Spanish rhythms apart 5/4 is a time signature used only in the modern era. Holst's Mars from the Planets is 5/4. But if you speak lines of poetry in that pattern you just end up hitting the off-beats. It's only when you add a rest - a sixth beat - that it sounds as it surely should sound.
I realised a long time ago that instrumental music speaks a lot more clearly than English Spanish Yiddish Swahili any other language. Pure melody goes outside time.
First of all the music that people call Latin or Spanish is really African. So Black people need to get the credit for that.
I'm learning Spanish - I got Rosetta Stone for Christmas.
I speak Spanish to God Italian to women French to men and German to my horse.
There is a bright spot or two for the Spaniards. French toast has become freedom toast on the Air Force One breakfast menu but the Spanish omelet is still a Spanish omelet.
And though various organizations in America and England collected money and sent food parcels to these refugees nothing was ever received by the Spanish.
My parents were French and Irish and our family even has Spanish blood-and I do so love the United States and consider myself part American.
I grew up in a predominantly Caucasian neighborhood but my mom is Filipino-Spanish and my dad is Irish.
We had the skirts with the slits up the side sort of tough sort of Spanish Harlem cool but sweet too.
I love the song 'El Rey.' And for years I never knew what the song was totally about. It was something new for me. I'd never sung a song in Spanish before. Then I got the translation and saw what a really cool song it was.
I'd love to go to art school. I'd love to learn how to draw. I'd love to be fluent in Spanish. I'd like to be a brain surgeon.
I have never denied my background or my culture. I have taught my child to embrace her Mexican heritage to love my first language Spanish to learn about Mexican history music folk art food and even the Mexican candy I grew up with.
It is quite annoying that we have to change the sound we invented just to avoid sounding like people who simply copy us but... it is flattering and of course challenging.