VISITING THE BLOOD BANK, GIVING YOUR BEST TREASURE

Donating blood in the Hospital Clínic, Barcelona

Today, The Grandma has gone to the Hospital Clínic in Barcelona to donate blood. It is true that she is very old to do it but she has a young spirit and enough force and blood to share with other. Donating blood is one of the best things you can do. It is free, fast and necessary.

The Grandma wants to talk about one of the most interesting institutions, el Banc de Sang i Teixits, a blood bank that works for our health and lives.

The Banc de Sang i Teixits is a public company of the Health Department of the Generalitat de Catalunya, committed to supplying and guaranteeing the good use of blood and human tissues donations to Catalonia.

The center has the mission of collecting blood donations, umbilical cord, maternal and bone marrow, and distribute them in various hospital centers in the Catalan territory.

The Banc de Sang i Teixits is also promoting biological diagnostic studies, such as the GCAT Genomes per a la Vida project, aimed at facilitating the prediction and treatment of neurodegenerative diseases, cardiovascular malignancies and cancer, among other pathologies.

The institution consists of a division dedicated to the development of advanced terraces, XCELIA, where it  is worked in the development of drugs based on cell therapies or tissue engineering aimed at the treatment of traumatological, hematological and immune diseases.

The Banc de Sang i Teixits is one of the seven Catalan companies that has obtained the Seal of European Excellence 500+, a certification of excellence of the management model given by the European Foundation for Quality in Management.

More information: Banc de Sang i Teixits

A blood bank is a center where blood gathered as a result of blood donation is stored and preserved for later use in blood transfusion. The term "blood bank" typically refers to a division of a hospital where the storage of blood product occurs and where proper testing is performed to reduce the risk of transfusion related adverse events. However, it sometimes refers to a collection center, and indeed some hospitals also perform collection.

The world's first blood donor service was established in 1921 by the secretary of the British Red Cross, Percy Oliver.

Volunteers were subjected to a series of physical tests to establish their blood group. The London Blood Transfusion Service was free of charge and expanded rapidly.

Donating blood, a must

By 1925, it was providing services for almost 500 patients and it was incorporated into the structure of the British Red Cross in 1926.

Similar systems were established in other cities including Sheffield, Manchester and Norwich, and the service's work began to attract international attention. Similar services were established in France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Australia and Japan.

Blood is a body fluid in humans and other animals that delivers necessary substances such as nutrients and oxygen to the cells and transports metabolic waste products away from those same cells.

In vertebrates, it is composed of blood cells suspended in blood plasma. Plasma, which constitutes 55% of blood fluid, is mostly water (92% by volume), and contains proteins, glucose, mineral ions, hormones, carbon dioxide (plasma being the main medium for excretory product transportation), and blood cells themselves.

Albumin is the main protein in plasma, and it functions to regulate the colloidal osmotic pressure of blood.

The blood cells are mainly red blood cells also called RBCs or erythrocytes, white blood cells also called WBCs or leukocytes and platelets also called thrombocytes.

The most abundant cells in vertebrate blood are red blood cells. These contain hemoglobin, an iron-containing protein, which facilitates oxygen transport by reversibly binding to this respiratory gas and greatly increasing its solubility in blood. In contrast, carbon dioxide is mostly transported extracellularly as bicarbonate ion transported in plasma.

More information: The New Yorker

Vertebrate blood is bright red when its hemoglobin is oxygenated and dark red when it is deoxygenated.

Some animals, such as crustaceans and mollusks, use hemocyanin to carry oxygen, instead of hemoglobin. Insects and some mollusks use a fluid called hemolymph instead of blood, the difference being that hemolymph is not contained in a closed circulatory system. In most insects, this blood does not contain oxygen-carrying molecules such as hemoglobin because their bodies are small enough for their tracheal system to suffice for supplying oxygen.

Jawed vertebrates have an adaptive immune system, based largely on white blood cells. White blood cells help to resist infections and parasites. Platelets are important in the clotting of blood. Arthropods, using hemolymph, have hemocytes as part of their immune system.

Blood is circulated around the body through blood vessels by the pumping action of the heart.

In animals with lungs, arterial blood carries oxygen from inhaled air to the tissues of the body, and venous blood carries carbon dioxide, a waste product of metabolism produced by cells, from the tissues to the lungs to be exhaled.

Medical terms related to blood often begin with hemo- or hemato- also spelled haemo- and haemato- from the Greek word αἷμα (haima) for blood. In terms of anatomy and histology, blood is considered a specialized form of connective tissue, given its origin in the bones and the presence of potential molecular fibers in the form of fibrinogen.

More information: Red Cross Blood

I've been involved with blood donation since the 1980s

because there is a critical need.

Donna Reed

'FLOWERS AND TREES', TECHNICOLOR & ACADEMY AWARD

Flowers and Trees

Today, The Grandma is at home surviving the new heat wave that affects Barcelona. The temperature is extremly high and the humidity is a nightmare.

She has decided to watch one of her favourite cartoons, Walt Disney's Flowers and Trees, a masterpiece that was premiered on a day like today in 1932 and that became the first cartoon short to use Technicolor and the first Academy Award winning cartoon short.

Flowers and Trees is a 1932 Silly Symphonies cartoon produced by Walt Disney, directed by Burt Gillett, and released to theatres by United Artists on July 30, 1932.

It was the first commercially released film to be produced in the full-color three-strip Technicolor process after several years of two-color Technicolor films. The film was a commercial and critical success, winning the first Academy Award for Best Cartoon Short Subject.

During spring the flowers, mushrooms, and trees do their calisthenics. Some trees play a tune, using vines for harp strings and a chorus of robins. A fight breaks out between a waspish-looking hollow tree and a younger, healthier tree for the attention of a female tree. The young tree emerges victorious, but the hollow tree retaliates by starting a fire. The plants and animals try to extinguish or evade the blaze. By poking holes in clouds and making it rain, the birds manage to put out the fire, although the hollow tree perishes in the flames after getting caught up in them himself. The young tree then proposes to the female tree, with a caterpillar serving as a ring, and they embrace as a 12-color rainbow forms behind them.

In May 1932, the first three-strip Technicolor camera was completed. Herbert Kalmus wanted to test it in the animation field, giving the company time to build enough cameras to offer the whole movie industry, but could not find any interested animators.

Finally Walt Disney agreed to try it as an experiment on Flowers and Trees, which was already in production in black-and-white, and ordered the cartoon redone in color. The color animation caused the production to run over budget, potentially ruining Disney financially, but the cartoon proved so popular that the profits made up for the budget overage.

As a result of the success of Flowers and Trees, all future Silly Symphonies cartoons were produced in three-strip Technicolor. The added novelty of color helped to boost the series' previously disappointing returns. Disney's other cartoon series, the Mickey Mouse shorts, were deemed successful enough not to need the extra boost of color, remaining in black-and-white until The Band Concert (1935).

Disney's exclusive contract with Technicolor, in effect until the end of 1935, forced other animation producers such as Ub Iwerks and Max Fleischer to use Technicolor's inferior two-color process or a competing two-color system such as Cinecolor.

Flowers and Trees was the first animated film to win an Oscar at the fifth Academy Awards in 1932.

It won an Oscar for best Short Subjects, Cartoons, a category first introduced that year.

More information: Walt Disney

 All our dreams can come true,
if we have the courage to pursue them.
 

Walt Disney

MIKIS THEODORAKIS, MUSIC AGAINST THE DICTATORSHIP

Mikis Theodorakis

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. Following the recommendations of the Health Department se does not go out and she is confined reading and listening to music. She has chosen Mikis Theodorakis. She loves this Greek composer and she adores all his songs, especially Tha Simanoun I Kabanes (When The Bells Will Ring) and To Yelasto Pedi (The laughing boy), two hymns against the dictatorship of the Colonels in Greece.

Mikis Theodorakis was born on a day like today in 1925 and The Grandma wants to pay homage to him talking about his life and his music.

Michael Mikis Theodorakis, in Greek Μιχαήλ Θεοδωράκης, born 29 July 1925, is a Greek composer and lyricist who has contributed to contemporary Greek music with over 1000 works.

He scored for the films Zorba the Greek (1964), Z (1969), and Serpico (1973). He composed the Mauthausen Trilogy, also known as The Ballad of Mauthausen, which has been described as the most beautiful musical work ever written about the Holocaust and possibly his best work. He is viewed as Greece's best-known living composer. He was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize.

More information: DW

Politically, he is associated with the left because of his long-standing ties to the Communist Party of Greece. He was an MP for the KKE from 1981-90. Nevertheless, in 1989 he ran as an independent candidate within the centre-right New Democracy party, in order for the country to emerge from the political crisis that had been created due to the numerous scandals of the government of Andreas Papandreou, and helped establish a large coalition between conservatives, socialists and leftists.

In 1990 he was elected to the parliament, as in 1964 and 1981, became a government minister under Constantine Mitsotakis, and fought against drugs and terrorism and for culture, education and better relations between Greece and Turkey.

He continued to speak out in favor of left-liberal causes, Greek–Turkish–Cypriot relations, and against the War in Iraq. He has consistently opposed oppressive regimes and was a key voice against the 1967–74 Greek junta, which imprisoned him and banned his songs.

Mikis Theodorakis

Mikis Theodorakis was born on the Greek island of Chios and spent his childhood years in different provincial Greek cities such as Mytilene, Cephallonia, Patras, Pyrgos, and Tripoli.

His father, a lawyer and a civil servant, was from the small village of Kato Galatas on Crete and his mother, Aspasia Poulakis, was from an ethnically Greek family in Çeşme, in what is today Turkey. He was raised with Greek folk music and was influenced by Byzantine liturgy; as a child he had already talked about becoming a composer.

His fascination with music began in early childhood; he taught himself to write his first songs without access to musical instruments. He took his first music lessons in Patras and Pyrgos, where he was a childhood friend of George Pavlopoulos, and in Tripoli, Peloponnese, he gave his first concert at the age of seventeen.

He went to Athens in 1943, and became a member of a Reserve Unit of ELAS, and led a troop in the fight against the British and the Greek right in the Dekemvriana.

During the Greek Civil War he was arrested, sent into exile on the island of Icaria and then deported to the island of Makronisos, where he was tortured and twice buried alive.

During the periods when he was not obliged to hide, not exiled or jailed, he studied from 1943 to 1950 at the Athens Conservatoire under Filoktitis Economidis.

More information: Bruce Duffie

In 1950, he finished his studies and took his last two exams with flying colours. He went to Crete, where he became the head of the Chania Music School and founded his first orchestra. At this time he ended what he has called the first period of his musical writing.

In 1954 he travelled with his young wife Myrto Altinoglou to Paris where he entered the Conservatory and studied musical analysis under Olivier Messiaen and conducting under Eugene Bigot. His time in Paris, 1954–1959, was his second period of musical writing.

In 1960, Theodorakis returned to Greece and his roots in genuine Greek music: With his song cycle Epitaphios he started the third period of his composing and contributed to a cultural revolution in his country.

Mikis Theodorakis with Maria Farantouri

His most significant and influential works are based on Greek and world poetry -Epiphania (Giorgos Seferis), Little Kyklades (Odysseas Elytis), Axion Esti (Odysseas Elytis), Mauthausen (Iakovos Kambanellis), Romiossini (Yannis Ritsos), and Romancero Gitano (Federico García Lorca)- he attempted to give back to Greek music a dignity which in his perception it had lost. He developed his concept of metasymphonic music.

He founded the Little Orchestra of Athens and the Musical Society of Piraeus, gave many, many concerts all around Greece and abroad... and he naturally became involved in the politics of his home country. After the assassination of Gregoris Lambrakis in May 1963 he founded the Lambrakis Democratic Youth (Lambrakidès) and was elected its president.

Under Theodorakis's impetus, it started a vast cultural renaissance movement and became the greatest political organisation in Greece with more than 50.000 members. Following the 1964 elections, Theodorakis became a member of the Greek Parliament, associated with the left-wing party EDA.

Because of his political ideas, the composer was black-listed by the cultural establishment; at the time of his biggest artistic glory, a large number of his songs were censored-before-studio or were not allowed on the radio stations.

More information: Finland Abroad

During 1964, he wrote the music for the Michael Cacoyiannis film Zorba the Greek, whose main theme, since then, exists as a trademark for Greece. It is also known as Syrtaki dance; inspired from old Cretan traditional dances.

On 21 April 1967 a right wing junta, the Regime of the Colonels, took power in a putsch. Theodorakis went underground and founded the Patriotic Front (PAM).

On 1 June, the Colonels published Army decree No 13, which banned playing, and even listening to his music.

Theodorakis himself was arrested on 21 August, and jailed for five months. Following his release end of January 1968, he was banished in August to Zatouna with his wife Myrto and their two children, Margarita and Yorgos. Later he was interned in the concentration camp of Oropos.

Mikis Theodorakis

An international solidarity movement, headed by such personalities as Dmitri Shostakovich, Leonard Bernstein, Arthur Miller, and Harry Belafonte demanded to get Theodorakis freed. On request of the French politician Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber, Theodorakis was allowed to go into exile to Paris on 13 April 1970.

Theodorakis's flight left very secretly from an Onassis owned private airport outside Athens. Theodorakis arrived at Le Bourget Airport where he met Costa Gavras, Melina Mercouri and Jules Dassin. Theodorakis was immediately hospitalized because he suffered from lung tuberculosis. Myrto Theodorakis, Mikis's wife and two children joined him a week later in France. They arrived from Greece to France via Italy on a boat.

While in exile, Theodorakis fought during four years for the overthrow of the colonels. He started his world tours and gave thousands of concerts on all continents as part of his struggle for the restoration of democracy in Greece.

He met Pablo Neruda and Salvador Allende and promised them to compose his version of Neruda's Canto General. He was received by Gamal Abdel Nasser and Tito, Yigal Allon and Yasser Arafat, while François Mitterrand, Olof Palme and Willy Brandt became his friends. For millions of people, Theodorakis was the symbol of resistance against the Greek dictatorship.

After the fall of the Colonels, Mikis Theodorakis returned to Greece on 24 July 1974 to continue his work and his concert tours, both in Greece and abroad.

More information: Enet English

 
He was committed to raise international awareness of human rights, of environmental issues and of the need for peace and, for this reason, he initiated, along with the Turkish author, musician, singer, and filmmaker Zülfü Livaneli the Greek–Turkish Friendship Society.

Now he lives in retirement, reading, writing, publishing arrangements of his scores, texts about culture and politics. On occasions he still takes position: in 1999, opposing NATO's Kosovo war and in 2003 against the Iraq War.

In 2005, he was awarded the Sorano Friendship and Peace Award, the Russian International St.-Andrew-the-First-Called Prize, the insignia of Grand Officer of the Order of Merit of Luxembourg, and the IMC UNESCO International Music Prize, while already in 2002 he was honoured in Bonn with the Erich Wolfgang Korngold Prize for film music at the International Film Music Biennial in Bonn.

In 2007, he received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the distribution of the World Soundtrack Awards in Ghent.

Mikis Theodorakis has been versionated by lots of artists. One of the most popular has been Maria del Mar Bonet, the voice of the Mediterranean, who adapted some Theodorakis's songs to Catalan.

More information: Greek City Times

 Με τόσα φύλλα σου γνέφει ο ήλιος καλημέρα
με τόσα φλάμπουρα λάμπει, λάμπει ο ουρανός
και τούτοι μέσ' τα σίδερα και κείνοι μεσ' το χώμα.
Σώπα όπου να 'ναι θα σημάνουν οι καμπάνες.
Αυτό το χώμα είναι δικό τους και δικό μας.

The sun beckons 'good morning' to you with his leaves
The sky shines from all these flags
These people behind bars and those buried
Be silent, in some minutes the bells will ring
This soil is their soil, is our soil.

Mikis Theodorakis

THE SUTTON HOO HELMET, AN ANGLO-SAXON TREASURE

The Sutton Hoo Helmet

Today, The Grandma is relaxing at home. She has been reading about an interesting theme, the discovering of the Sutton Hoo helmet, and ornate Anglo-Saxon helmet found on a day like today in 1939. It is believed to have belonged to King Rædwald of East Anglia.

The Sutton Hoo helmet is a decorated and ornate Anglo-Saxon helmet found during a 1939 excavation of the Sutton Hoo ship-burial.

It was buried around 625 and is widely believed to have belonged to King Rædwald of East Anglia; its elaborate decoration may have given it a secondary function akin to a crown.

The helmet was both a functional piece of armour that would have offered considerable protection if ever used in warfare, and a decorative, prestigious piece of extravagant metalwork. It is described as the most iconic object from one of the most spectacular archaeological discoveries ever made, and perhaps the most important known Anglo-Saxon artefact.

The visage contains eyebrows, a nose, and moustache, creating the image of a man joined by a dragon's head to become a soaring dragon with outstretched wings. It has become a symbol of the Early Middle Ages and of Archaeology in general. It was excavated as hundreds of rusted fragments, and was first displayed following an initial reconstruction in 1945–46, and then in its present form after a second reconstruction in 1970–71.

The helmet and the other artefacts from the site were determined the property of Edith Pretty, owner of the land on which they were found. She donated them to the British Museum, where the helmet is on permanent display in Room 41.

More information: BBC I & II

The helmet was buried among other regalia and instruments of power as part of a furnished ship-burial, probably dating from the early seventh century. The ship had been hauled from the nearby river up the hill and lowered into a prepared trench. Inside this, the helmet was wrapped in cloths and placed to the left of the head of the body.

An oval mound was constructed around the ship. Long afterwards, the chamber roof collapsed violently under the weight of the mound, compressing the ship's contents into a seam of earth.

It is thought that the helmet was shattered either by the collapse of the burial chamber or by the force of another object falling on it. The fact that the helmet had shattered meant that it was possible to reconstruct it. Had the helmet been crushed before the iron had fully oxidised, leaving it still pliant, the helmet would have been squashed, leaving it in a distorted shape similar to the Vendel and Valsgärde helmets.

The Sutton Hoo helmet, British Museum

The Sutton Hoo helmet, weighing an estimated 2.5 kg, was made of iron and covered with decorated sheets of tinned bronze. Fluted strips of moulding divided the exterior into panels, each of which was stamped with one of five designs.

Two depict figural scenes, another two zoophormic interlaced patterns; a fifth pattern, known only from seven small fragments and incapable of restoration, is only known to occur once on an otherwise symmetrical helmet and may have been used to replace a damaged panel.

The existence of these five designs has been generally understood since the first reconstruction, published in 1947. The succeeding three decades gave rise to an increased understanding of the designs and their parallels in contemporary imagery, allowing possible reconstructions of the full panels to be advanced, and through the second reconstruction their locations on the surface of the helmet to be redetermined

The core of the helmet was constructed of iron and consisted of a cap from which hung a face mask and cheek and neck guards. The cap was beaten into shape from a single piece of metal. On either side of it were hung iron cheek guards, deep enough to protect the entire side of the face, and curved inward both vertically and horizontally.

Two hinges per side, possibly made of leather, supported these pieces, allowing them to be pulled flush with the face mask and fully enclose the face. A neck guard was attached to the back of the cap and made of two overlapping pieces: a shorter piece set inside the cap, over which attached a broad fan-like portion extending downwards, straight from top to bottom but curved laterally to follow the line of the neck.

More information: Smart History

The inset portion afforded the neck guard extra movement, and like the cheek guards was attached to the cap by leather hinges. Finally, the face mask was riveted to the cap on both sides and above the nose. Two cutouts served as eye openings, while a third opened into the hollow of the overlaid nose, thereby facilitating access to the two nostril-like holes underneath; though small, these holes would have been among the few sources of fresh air for the wearer.

The Sutton Hoo helmet was both a functional piece of battle equipment and a symbol of its owner's power and prestige.

It would have offered considerable protection if ever used in battle, and as the richest known Anglo-Saxon helmet, indicated its owner's status.

As it is older than the man with whom it was buried, the helmet may have been an heirloom, symbolic of the ceremonies of its owner's life and death; it may further be a progenitor of crowns, known in Europe since around the twelfth century,indicating both a leader's right to rule and his connection with the gods.
 

The Sutton Hoo helmet was discovered over three days in July and August 1939, with only three weeks remaining in the excavation of the ship-burial. It was found in more than 500 pieces, which would prove to account for less than half of the original surface area.

More information: Squaducation

When you think about archaeology,

archaeology is the only field that allows us to tell

the story of 99 percent of our history

prior to 3,000 B.C. and writing.

Sarah Parcak

LLUÍS SERRAHIMA, 'ELS SETZE JUTGES' & 'LA NOVA CANÇÓ'

Lluis Serrahima i Villavecchia

Today, The Grandma has received sad news again. Lluís Serrahima, a Catalan writer, and promoter of the group Els Setze Jutges within the Nova Cançó catalana movement has died at 89.

The Grandma is Andorran and she knows how important is to keep alive a language and a culture, especially when it is threatened by other.

Lluís Serrahima was a person who loved his culture and fought for it. We are witnesses of this struggle and we must continue with it.

More than 40 years after he wrote Què volen aquesta gent? a song considered a hymn against the Francoism repression and dictatorship sung by Maria del Mar Bonet. This song continues being sung nowadays. This demonstrates that nothing has changed since that age, dictatorship never finished, and democracy has never arrived. This is the drama and the real explanation to events that we are living currently.

Lluís Serrahima i Villavecchia (Barcelona, ​​19 August 1931-26 July 2020) was a Catalan writer, promoter of the group Els Setze Jutges within the Nova Cançó catalana movement.

Son of Maurici Serrahima i Bofill and Carme Villavecchia i Dotti, he graduated in law. His article Ens calen cançons d'ara, published in 1959 in Germinàbit is considered the founding text of the movement.

Although he performed several times in public performing some of his own songs, he sang Jo soc pansit como la luna at the session held at the CICF on December 19, 1961, he did not record a record and soon left the stage, despite who continued to write texts for other performers now and then: Miquel Porter i Moix (Sóc un burgés) Els 4 Gats (Cla i Cat), Maria del Mar Bonet (Què volen aquesta gent?).

More information: Què volen aquesta gent? by Maria del Mar Bonet

In the mid-1980s the Generalitat de Catalunya put him in charge of a department dedicated to song in all its manifestations, being appointed in 1986 head of the Music Service of the Generalitat de Catalunya.

In 2007 he was awarded the Medal of Honor of the Parliament of Catalonia, together with the members of Els Setze Jutges.

In November 2018, 1984 Editions published Què volen aquesta gent? El llegat poètic that includes his poems Com el mar (1962) and Torno a salpar (2004) as well as the unpublished book Figures en assaig, with literary edition and prologue by Glòria Soler Giménez.

Els Setze Jutges was a group of singers in the Catalan language founded in 1961 by Miquel Porter i Moix, Remei Margarit, and Josep Maria Espinàs.

The name comes from a well known tongue-twister in the Catalan language: Setze jutges d'un jutjat mengen fetge d'un penjat, Sixteen judges of a court eat liver off a hangman.

Some of Els Setze Jutges

The mission of the group was to promote the Nova Cançó movement and to normalize the use of Catalan in the world of modern music.

They started out singing their own songs and Catalan versions of songs by French singers, especially Georges Brassens.

From the original three members, the circle grew to sixteen: Delfí Abella, Francesc Pi de la Serra, Enric Barbat, Xavier Elies, Guillermina Motta, Maria del Carme Girau, Martí Llauradó, Maria Amèlia Pedrerol, Joan Ramon Bonet, Joan Manuel Serrat, Maria del Mar Bonet, Lluís Llach, and Rafael Subirachs.

Els Setze Jutges began to dissolve at the end of the dictatorship and with the progressive professionalization of some of the group's members.

With the appearance of professional Catalan-language singers, many of the group's earlier members, such as Miquel Porter i Moix and Josep Maria Espinàs, decided to retire from music.

By the time the group ceased to exist in 1968, several of its members - most notably Serrat, but also Llach, Maria del Mar Bonet, Pi de la Serra, Barbat, Motta and Subirachs - had begun to enjoy success as individual musicians.

More information: Què volen aquesta gent? by Sabor de Gràcia

On April 13, 2007, the group of singers received the Medal of Honor of the Parliament of Catalonia, in recognition of their work in favor of Catalan culture and language during the dictatorship.

However, Maria del Mar Bonet used the occasion to criticize the lack of promotion of Catalan-language songs in the media during the three decades since the Spanish transition to democracy, and Guillermina Motta declined to attend the ceremony, objecting that the distinction was awarded too late, when two of the sixteen had already died: Miquel Porter in 2004 and Delfí Abella in February 2007.

The Nova Cançó was an artistic movement that promoted Catalan music in Francoist Spain.

The movement sought to normalize use of the Catalan language in popular music and denounced the injustices in Francoist Spain.

The Grup de Folk, which emerged in the same period, also promoted a new form of popular music in Catalan, drawing inspiration from contemporary American and British music.

Receiving the Medal of Honour, Parliament of Catalonia

The Nova Cançó movement originated at the end of the 1950s, twenty years after the installation of the Spanish State with its repressive policies against the Catalan language and Catalan culture.

The late 1950s were a period of economic and political change in Spain: Spain ended its policy of economic autarky, and Francoist Spain was admitted to the United Nations, which required the government to improve its image abroad. In this new context, at the beginning of the 1960s, new cultural projects emerged in Catalonia.

In 1961, the record label Edigsa and the cultural organization Òmnium Cultural were founded, and the first edition of the children's magazine Cavall Fort was published.

In April 1962, the publishing house Edicions 62 released its first book. Little by little, the Catalan language, the public use of which had been expressly forbidden after the fall of Catalonia in the Spanish Civil War, began to regain a public presence.

A notable example is the magazine Germinàbit, published by the Abbey of Montserrat, which in October 1952 became the magazine Serra d’Or.

In 1957, the writer Josep Maria Espinàs gave lectures on the French singer-songwriter Georges Brassens, whom he called the troubadour of our times. Espinàs had begun to translate some of Brassens' songs into Catalan.

In 1958, two EPs of songs in Catalan were released: Hermanos Serrano: Cantan en catalán los éxitos internationals and José Guardiola: canta en catalán los éxitos internationales. They are now considered the first recordings of modern music in the Catalan language. These singers, as well as others such as Font Sellabona and Rudy Ventura, form a prelude to the Nova Cançó.

More info: Què volen aquesta gent? by Irene Ferioli & Alessio Arena

The movement's beginnings were in the second half of the 1950s, with the formation of a group suggested by Josep Benet i de Joan and Maurici Serrahima. This consisted of Jaume Armengol, Lluís Serrahima and Miquel Porter, who started composing Catalan songs.

In 1959, after an article by Lluís Serrahima, titled Ens calen cançons d'ara was published in Germinàbit, more authors and singers were attracted to the movement. Miquel Porter, Josep Maria Espinàs and Remei Margarit founded the group Els Setze Jutges.

Their first concert, although still not with this name, was on 19 December 1961, in Barcelona. Their first performance with the name of Els Setze Jutges was in Premià de Mar in 1962.

Lluís Serrahima & Maria del Mar Bonet

In the following years, new singers joined the group, until the number of sixteen (Setze). The group offered numerous performances all over Catalonia with a willingness of filling a lack in popular music in Catalan, often in precarious conditions, in which they followed the same system: everyone of the four or five members in the stage sung in turns, with his guitar, while the others were seated in the background on the stage.

The first Nova Cançó records appeared in 1962, and many musical bands, vocal groups, singer-songwriters, and interpreters picked up the trend.

In 1963, a professional Catalan artist, Salomé, and a Valencian, Raimon, were awarded the first prize of the Fifth Mediterranean Song Festival with the song Se'n va anar.

Despite the restrictions and administrative hurdles in television and radio broadcast, as well as in record industry, the Nova Cançó became increasingly popular, so many interpreters started to professionalize: first members of Els Setze Jutges sang as an amateur activity, and they leave when younger members started a career as a singers, such as Joan Manuel Serrat, Lluís Llach, Maria del Mar Bonet, Guillermina Motta or Francesc Pi de la Serra. At the same time, other variations on the style, based on other genres such as folk, appeared, with bands such as Grup de Folk and Esquirols.

Other important participants in the movement included Guillem d'Efak and Núria Feliu, who received the Spanish Critics' Award in 1966, or other new members of Els Setze Jutges. Some of them were even well known abroad.

As time passed, some bilingual singers appeared and other ideological positions emerged, diverging from the initial ideas behind the movement.

Other significant figures appeared somewhat later, like the Valencian Ovidi Montllor.

Inspired by the success of the Nova Cançó, parallel movements sprang up in Galicia, Basque Country (Euskal Kantagintza Berria), and Castile.

More information: Què volen aquesta gent? by Escarteen Sisters

De matinada han trucat,
són al replà de l'escala,
la mare quan surt a obrir
porta la bata posada.
Què volen aquesta gent
que truquen de matinada?
 
They knocked in the early morning,
they’re on the landing of the stairs;
when the mother comes to open the door
she has on her dressing gown.
What do these people want
who knock in the early morning?

Lluís Serrahima

OLIVIA M. DE HAVILLAND, THE LAST OF THE GOLDEN AGE

Olivia de Havilland

Today, The Grandma has received sad news. Olivia de Havilland, the last star of Hollywood's Golden Age died yesterday at 104.

The Grandma loves classic cinema and Olivia de Havilland was one of the most acclaimed artists thanks to her great interpretations. Perhaps, the most part of fans are going to remember Olivia de Havilland because of her role in Gone with the Wind but for The Grandma, Olivia de Havilland will be always one of the best Lady Marian, the famous character of Robin Hood.

The Grandma thinks that the best way to pay homage to Olivia de Havilland is talking about her life and her career.

Olivia Mary de Havilland (July 1, 1916-July 25, 2020) was a French-British-American actress. The major works of her cinematic career spanned from 1935 to 1988. She appeared in 49 feature films, and was one of the leading actresses of her time. She was also one of the last surviving stars from the Golden Age of Hollywood Cinema, until her death in 2020. Her younger sister was actress Joan Fontaine.

De Havilland first came to prominence as a screen couple with Errol Flynn in adventure films such as Captain Blood (1935) and The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938). One of her best-known roles is that of Melanie Hamilton in the classic film Gone with the Wind (1939), for which she received her first of five Oscar nominations, the only one for Best Supporting Actress.

De Havilland departed from ingénue roles in the 1940s and later received acclaim for her performances in Hold Back the Dawn (1941), To Each His Own (1946), The Snake Pit (1948), and The Heiress (1949), receiving nominations for Best Actress for each, winning for To Each His Own and The Heiress. She was also successful in work on stage and television.

De Havilland lived in Paris since the 1950s, and received honors such as the National Medal of the Arts, the Légion d'honneur, and the appointment to Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.

More information: BBC

In addition to her film career, de Havilland continued her work in the theater, appearing three times on Broadway, in Romeo and Juliet (1951), Candida (1952), and A Gift of Time (1962). She also worked in television, appearing in the successful miniseries, Roots: The Next Generations (1979), and Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986), for which she received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination and won the Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Television Movie or Series.

During her film career, de Havilland also collected two New York Film Critics Circle Awards, the National Board of Review Award for Best Actress, and the Venice Film Festival Volpi Cup. For her contributions to the motion picture industry, she received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

Olivia Mary de Havilland was born on July 1, 1916 in Tokyo. They moved into a large house in Tokyo, where Lilian gave informal singing recitals. Olivia's younger sister Joan (Joan de Beauvoir de Havilland)‍ -later known as actress Joan Fontaine‍- was born fifteen months later, on October 22, 1917. Both sisters became citizens of the United Kingdom automatically by birthright.

Robin Hood (E. Flynn) & Gone with the Wind (V. Leigh)

Olivia was raised to appreciate the arts, beginning with ballet lessons at the age of four and piano lessons a year later.

She learned to read before she was six, and her mother, who occasionally taught drama, music, and elocution, had her reciting passages from Shakespeare to strengthen her diction.

In 1933, a teenage de Havilland made her debut in amateur theater in Alice in Wonderland, a production of the Saratoga Community Players based on the novel by Lewis Carroll. She also appeared in several school plays, including The Merchant of Venice and Hansel and Gretel.

De Havilland made her screen debut in Reinhardt's A Midsummer Night's Dream, which was filmed at Warner Bros.

Although Warner Brothers studio had assumed that the many costumed films that studios like MGM had earlier produced would never succeed during the years of the Great Depression, they nonetheless took a chance by producing Captain Blood, also 1935.

De Havilland had her first top billing in Archie Mayo's comedy Call It a Day (1937), about a middle-class English family struggling with the romantic effects of spring fever during the course of a single day.

In September 1937, de Havilland was selected by Warner Bros. studio head Jack L. Warner to play Maid Marian opposite Errol Flynn in The Adventures of Robin Hood (1938).

More information: BBC

In a letter to a colleague dated November 18, 1938, film producer David O. Selznick wrote, I would give anything if we had Olivia de Havilland under contract to us so that we could cast her as Melanie. The film he was preparing to shoot was Gone with the Wind, and Jack L. Warner was unwilling to lend her out for the project.

De Havilland had read the novel, and unlike most other actresses, who wanted the Scarlett O'Hara role, she wanted to play Melanie Hamilton‍—‌a character whose quiet dignity and inner strength she understood and felt she could bring to life on the screen.

De Havilland appeared in Elliott Nugent's romantic comedy The Male Animal (1942) with Henry Fonda, about an idealistic professor fighting for academic freedom while trying to hold onto his job and his wife Ellen.

Olivia de Havilland and her sister, Joan Fontaine

Around the same time, she appeared in John Huston's drama In This Our Life, also 1942, with Bette Davis.

De Havilland became a naturalized citizen of the United States on November 28, 1941, ten days before the United States entered World War II militarily, alongside the Allied Forces.

De Havilland was praised for her performance as Virginia Cunningham in Anatole Litvak's drama The Snake Pit (1948), one of the first films to attempt a realistic portrayal of mental illness and an important exposé of the harsh conditions in state mental hospitals, according to film critic Philip French.

De Havilland appeared in William Wyler's period drama The Heiress (1949), the fourth in a string of critically acclaimed performances.

De Havilland returned to the screen in Michael Curtiz's Western drama The Proud Rebel (1958), a film about a former Confederate soldier (Alan Ladd) whose wife was killed in the war and whose son lost the ability to speak after witnessing the tragedy.

More information: Everything Zoomer

As film roles became more difficult to find, a common problem shared by many Hollywood veterans from her era, de Havilland began working in television dramas, despite her dislike of the networks' practice of breaking up story lines with commercials.

In the 1980s, her television work included an Agatha Christie television film Murder Is Easy (1982), the television drama The Royal Romance of Charles and Diana (1982) in which she played the Queen Mother, and the 1986 ABC miniseries North and South, Book II.

Her performance in the television film Anastasia: The Mystery of Anna (1986), as Dowager Empress Maria, earned her a Golden Globe Award for Best Supporting Actress in a Series, Miniseries or Television Film.

In 1988, de Havilland appeared in the HTV romantic television drama The Woman He Loved; it was her final screen performance.

De Havilland died of natural causes in her sleep at her home in Paris, France, on July 25, 2020, at the age of 104.

More information: The Atlantic

There certainly is such a thing as screen chemistry,

although I don't believe you find it frequently.

Olivia De Havilland

'DÍA DA PATRIA GALEGA', ROOTS OF THE GALICIAN NATION

The Grandma visits Galiza

Today is Saint James, patron of Galiza. The Grandma wants to pay homage to this wonderful and unforgettable land talking about its history, culture and peoples. If you have the possibility, do not doubt about visiting this magic place full of mystery, legends and places to see and enjoy.

Galiza or Galicia is a Celtic Nation in the south of Europe, a nation that waits for its awakeness and works very hard every day to reach it.

Parabéns Galiza!

Dia Nacional de Galicia or National Day of Galicia is when Galicia celebrates its national holiday. It falls on 25 July.

It is also called Día da Patria Galega, Day of the Galician Fatherland or simply Día de Galicia but the official full denomination is the National Day of Galicia, as established by the Galician government in 1979.

The origins of the celebration can be traced back to 1919, when the Assembly of the Galicianist organization Irmandades da Fala met in the Galician capital, Santiago de Compostela. It was then decided to celebrate the National Day on 25 July the following year. The date was chosen as it is the day dedicated to Saint James, patron saint of both Galicia and the Galician capital city.

It was celebrated openly until the Francoist dictatorship (1939-1977), when any display of non-Spanish nationalism was prohibited. During that time the National Day would still be celebrated as such by the Galician emigrant communities abroad.

More information: Cultura

In Galicia, the Galicianists would gather with the pretext of offering a Mass for Galician poet and literary icon Rosalia de Castro. Curiously enough, the Francoist regime institutionalized the religious celebration of Saint James as the patron saint of Spain.

Nonetheless, from 1968 Galicianists attempted to celebrate the day in Compostela and called for public political demonstrations every 25 July. These demonstrations would invariably result in riots with the Spanish police.

Even during the first years of democracy, after 1977, any demonstration organised by the Asemblea Nacional-Popular Galega and the BN-PG, later transformed into the Galician Nationalist Bloc, would still be forbidden. It is only during the mid-1980s when the National Day started to, gradually, be celebrated with some degree of normality. Although, the events from the late 1960s onwards transformed the National Day celebrations into a date with deep political implications.

The Grandma visits Galiza

At present, Galician political parties organise large demonstrations at the capital city and/or a number of activities to commemorate the day.

The political and institutional activities are normally all based in Santiago de Compostela, and the day is an official public holiday celebrated with solemnity by the Galician government.

Apart from that, a number of festivities take place from the night of the 24th until high hours in the morning of the 26th, celebrated by many.

The ethnonym Galicians (Galegos) derives from the Latin Gallaeci or Callaeci, itself an adaptation of the name of a local Celtic tribe known to the Greeks as Καλλαϊκoί (Kallaikoí), who lived in what is now Galicia and northern Portugal, and who were conquered by the Roman General Decimus Junius Brutus Callaicus in the 2nd century BCE.

The Romans later applied this name to all the people who shared the same culture and language in the northwest, from the Douro River valley in the south to the Cantabrian Sea in the north and west to the Navia River, encompassing tribes as the Celtici, the Artabri, the Lemavi and the Albiones, among others.

The etymology of the name has been studied since the 7th century by authors such as Isidore of Seville, who wrote that Galicians are called so because of their fair skin, as the Gauls, relating the name to the Greek word for milk.

However, modern scholars have derived the name of the ancient Callaeci either from Proto-Indo-European *kal-n-eH2 hill, through a local relational suffix -aik-, so meaning the highlanders; or either from Proto-Celtic *kallī- forest, so meaning the forest (people).

More information: Tartan Gallaecia

The most recent proposal comes from linguist Francesco Benozzo after identifying the root gall- / kall- in a number of Celtic words with the meaning stone or rock, as follows: gall (old Irish), gal (Middle Welsh), gailleichan (Scottish Gaelic), kailhoù (Breton), galagh (Manx) and gall (Gaulish).

Hence, Benozzo explains the name Callaecia and its ethnonym Callaeci as being the stone people or the people of the stone (those who work with stones), in reference to the ancient megaliths and stone formations so common in Galicia and Portugal.

Galician is a Romance language belonging to the Western Ibero-Romance branch; as such, it derives from Latin.

It has official status in Galicia. Galician is also spoken in the neighbouring communities of Asturias and Castile and León, near their borders with Galicia.

Sempre en Galiza by Alfonso Castelao

Medieval or Old Galician, also known by linguists as Galician-Portuguese, developed locally in the Northwest of the Iberian Peninsula from Vulgar Latin, becoming the language spoken and written in the medieval kingdoms of Galicia, from 1230 united with the kingdoms of Leon and Castille under the same sovereign and Portugal.

The Galician-Portuguese language developed a rich literary tradition from the last years of the 12th century. During the 13th century it gradually substituted Latin as the language used in public and private charters, deeds, and legal documents, in Galicia, Portugal, and in the neighbouring regions in Asturias and Leon.

Galician-Portuguese diverged into two linguistic varieties -Galician and Portuguese- from the 15th century on. 

Galician became a regional variety open to the influence of Castilian Spanish, while Portuguese became the international one, as language of the Portuguese Empire. The two varieties are still close together, and in particular northern Portuguese dialects share an important number of similarities with Galician ones.

The official institution regulating the Galician language, backed by the Galician government and universities, the Royal Galician Academy, claims that modern Galician must be considered an independent Romance language belonging to the group of Ibero-Romance languages and having strong ties with Portuguese and its northern dialects.

More information: Euskadi

However, the Associaçom Galega da Língua (Galician Language Association) and Academia Galega da Língua Portuguesa (Galician Academy of the Portuguese Language), belonging to the Reintegrationist movement, support the idea that differences between Galician and Portuguese speech are not enough to justify considering them as separate languages: Galician is simply one variety of Galician-Portuguese, along with Brazilian Portuguese, African Portuguese, the Galician-Portuguese still spoken in Spanish Extremadura, (Fala), and other variations.

Nowadays, despite the positive effects of official recognition of the Galician language, Galicia's socio-linguistic development has experienced the growing influence of Spanish due the media as well as legal imposition of Spanish in learning.

Galicia also boasts a rich oral tradition, in the form of songs, tales, and sayings, which has made a vital contribution to the spread and development of the Galician language. Still flourishing today, this tradition shares much with that of Portugal.

More information: Galician Flag

Volverei, volverei á vida
Cando rompa a luz nos cons
Porque nós arrancamos todo o orgullo do mar,
Non nos afundiremos nunca máis
Que na túa memoria xa non hai volta atrás:
Non nos humillaredes NUNCA MÁIS.

Luar Na Lubre