Category: Spanish

  • Sue Johanson vs. Alessandra Rampolla – FIGHT!

    When I was in Canada, I spent some of those Sunday nights watching Sunday Night Sex Show with Sue Johanson, and then my mind was blown. With her as-a-matter-of-fact tone, and some of the most bizarre requests [raw meat, anyone? Somebody said Athlete’s Foot?], Sue delivered sex knowledge and opinion like I have never had heard or seen before. It also happened that Sue wasn’t like how the media had made me imagine sexologists were like.

    WARNING: This Hot Mix is both HILARIOUS and NSFW!

    All the while, coming over down here, I saw the birth of Alessandra Rampolla and her show, which has in part revolutionized Latin America, I suppose. The difference with the both of them is, I suppose, culturally. While Sue’s show was set for call-answering ANY question, Rampolla’s show is set more like a talk show… which is more like a familiar format for the region, but doesn’t allow the same topic freedom that the other format offers.

    I like that Rampolla’s way of talking is a lot like a kinder or primary school teacher explaining — still — the finer points of being bisexual to her audience with ease and humor. Rampolla’s style is more like Sexologist 101, while Sue is more Advanced Studies.

    I didn’t find any cool YouTube mix of her, so this interview with her by Magaly Medina will have to do. Medina isn’t a sexologist or all that serious when she does her entertainment show, so some of her comments are a bit eye-roll worthy, but Rampolla really is that lovely.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QtCKegCHxqU

  • SNSD’s Sleeping Habits

    I’m not particularly fond of Girls Generation, but I like them THEM – they’re funny. I ran into this compilation of everyone’s pointing out at each others’ sleeping habits… which, you know, they’re always interesting to find. That’s one of the reasons I strongly believe in cohabitation before marriage; it’s always good to know other people’s sleeping (and living) habits.

    My family’s habits are probably a lot closer to Taeyeon’s. My mother and I speak in our sleep — my cousin told us that there was once we were all on the same room sleeping, my mother sneezed in her sleep, I told her “bless you” and she responded with a “thank you” without ever waking up. LOL

    Then of course there’s the infamous time when I was visiting my cousin in Hawaii, and I was sleeping in her room. At that time I was surrounded by a lot of Korean friends in my daily life who would speak a lot of Korean among themselves. There was a point that it was so much Korean, that I started understanding words out of nowhere. Apparently, that night in my cousin’s house, I was speaking something unintelligible. That day I told her I had dreamed about my Korean friends. So what say you? Did I speak unintelligible Korean in my sleep?

    What language do you guys dream in?

    I usually dream in both Spanish and English — sometimes it gets wacky because friends that I would normally speak in English to start speaking Spanish in my dream. Then it all gets a little fuzzy. I’ve never had that happen backwards, though.

  • We eat more than cows, chickens and pigs~ so what?

    About a week ago Nat Geo was showing a new episode of Tabu Latinamerica, which happened to focus on food. One of my favorite subjects. Thinking about food makes me hungry. But this is Tabu, so obviously we weren’t going to be talking about regular food. While the episode focused on Mexico and Venezuela, with their talks on eating rata campestre (countryside rat??? not from the sewers of course) soup, and… some kind of tarantula/spider?

    Anyway, part of the episode also focused in Peru, where they showed a town called La Quebrada, in Cañete, they prepare cat. I haven’t eaten cat — at least, not knowingly… though once while we were eating rabbit chicharron, we suspected we had been given cat because the “rabbit” was bigger and had more fat in it — but I’ve eaten a lot of other things. Of course, guinea pig is kind of a regular “bizarre” food, and I guess rabbit is bizarre to some people. Suri (the worm) is also tasty when fried (it’s almost like crispy pork skin), as well as an assortment of fishes~ Including the palometa (which I’ve heard it’s a piranha’s cousin LOL) and paiche. Shark’s fin soup and swallow’s nest soup apply.

    It’s kind of always been common knowledge that people ate cats in Peru- my family (and I’m sure many other people) often joked about it, it’s like joking about everything being chicken, or eating the insides of animals — horror movies and 4D jokes are perfect. Let me tell you, thank you Afro-Peruvians for developing Anticuchos. As a Peruvian who has finally learned to eat without asking (much), and not judge cultures by my own point of view, it saddens me to see people’s comments. Especially considering that we’re all Latin Americans.

    Does it feel good to call other people ignorant, or small-minded? Is it wrong to eat something just because you think it’s your pet? Is it not wrong that we eat cow so easily when Indians see them as gods? We’re eating their gods, sending them to slaughter houses, and people judge these people because they eat their pets in a non-industrialized way. This is kind of the same issue I had with The Cove [1].

  • Assorted YAM Magazine Interviews

    yammag-interview-laure-shang-plympton-crowd-lu-guangzhong-esteman
    From left to right.- Laure Shang Wenjie, animator Bill Plympton, Crowd Lu, and Esteman.

    For the past couple of months I’ve been able to interview some of these awesome people. But that you knew if you were following all my ramblings on YAM Magazine.

    For some other of my interviews, click here.

  • Chicha Libre to the World

    I was browsing albums, when I stumbled upon this album cover by Elliot Tupac.

    chicha-libre-cuatro-tigres-elliot-tupac

    Of course, for those in the know, you’d know that’s a super Chicha style type of typography [1], so interested to see what it was all about, I did a quick search. You’d be happy to know you can stream all of the EP Cuatro Tigres on Soundcloud, as well as their new album Canibalismo. Chicha Libre is a multi-ethnic Brooklyn-based group formed by Americans, Mexicans, Venezuelans and French musicians mixing Peruvian Chicha music with 60s psychedelic music and stuff. It’s pretty trippy.

    I never in my life would’ve thought that I’d be sitting through more than one album of Chicha music. The most interesting thing is that there’s no Peruvians in sight on core members of the group. You can check them out on Facebook or Twitter. I’m not entirely a Chicha convert, but I appreciate the variety in the concept of the group. I do think they sound a lot like Chicha groups, but sing in English instead. Novelty, but it gets a bit tiring by the fourth track.

    Conveniently, the group was asked to do a The Simpsons tune for one of the episodes.

    [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/81093323″ params=”color=ff0090&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

  • Real Women Have Curves on Telenovelas

    Mother (Lupe Ontiveros): Ay, Estela, Ana, de la que se perdieron en la novela, Los Pobres Lloran Más.
    Ana (America Ferrera): Mom, I don’t watch Spanish soap operas.
    Mother: It’s not a regular novela; it’s a Brazilian. Esas son mejores. ¿Verdad, Don Miguel?

  • Nuevas Regulaciones de SUNAT?

    Acabo de recibir un correo de uno de los servicios de envío que he usado informándome que ahora tengo un límite de 3 envíos (o un equivalente de $1000USD) como persona natural gracias a nuevas regulaciones implementadas por la eficaz institución de Aduanas que tenemos en el Perú. Gracias, SUNAT, por hacerme la vida más fácil.

    sunat-regulaciones-aduanas-2013

    Ustedes siempre tan eficaces! Haciéndole la vida tan sencilla a las compañías que dan servicio de envíos por internet.

    Express Mail Service FTW! $20USD no es nada si evito tener que lidiar con todos ustedes.

  • The Ultimate Guide to Boy Bands of the 90s

    yammag-ultimate-guide-boy-band-90s

    What started like a simple post, ended up taking a lot of hours of research and boy band video-watching. I may or not regret it.

    Voila! The Ultimate Guide to Boy Bands of the 90s ~

    There were boy bands I hadn’t even heard of… and some that I had to dust off my VHS tapes to get their names. Ha!

  • Historia de la Musica by Pablo Morales de los Rios

    Over the years there has been some outstanding whiteboard marker illustration videos, like Drive: The Surprising Truth about what Motivates Us [1], Where Good Ideas Come From by Steven Johnson, or variations like James & Amy’s Electric Fence [MV] (drawn by James Cooper).

    Spanish artist Pablo Morales de los Rios takes a look at the history of music and lays it out all on the table.

    It’s a thing of beauty.

  • Woah~ Esteman is a Distractor~

    Ever since I listened to Esteman’s feature length debut, I’ve been loving the album. I know I haven’t actually built my Top10 albums this past 2012 (I’m unsure I have enough quality to make a Top10) but 1er Acto is definitely included in this.

    Allen, Keaton y Johansson, Presley, Minelli, Sinatra, Cotillard et Piaf, Funes, Bardot, Gaga, Madonna, Davis, Andersson, Lauren, Newman y Travolta, Taylor, Mercury, Coppola, Almodovar, Cruz, Leguizamo, Winehouse, Lennon, Jackson y Monroe.

    [soundcloud url=”https://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/44616062″ params=”color=ff0090&auto_play=false&show_artwork=true” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

    Though, his track with Andrea Echeverri, Aqui Estoy Yo, made it to my Top10 tracks of last year.