1066: The year that change it all.

In this last post, i am gonna write about the year 1066 in England. Probably you are thinking why the hell's this dude is going to write about the year 1066 in England?  The answer is in the history about this country. Actually, what we know like Great Britain actually, is the result of a hystorical trajectory that become in a england way exactly in that year. Before of that, England hasnt existed.

When the Romans conquered Britain long time ago, they have to left it a time after, when keep it there a expensive a useless project, while the germanic tribe were asolating the continental Roman Western Empire. So, when the romans left, Britannia, the name of the Island in that time, was re-occupied by the native peoples and also for germanic tribes from the continent: The Anglos, and the Saxons.
With the time, in Brittania has born the Anglosaxon Kingdoms, where they spoke languages like Anglo, Saxon, between other languages, it generate a proto-english language. So they keep livings in they costumes until the year 1066 after Christ Era, when a normand (North-west side of that actual France) Duke, William the Bastard, invaded Brittania to reclaim the throne of the souther parth of the island, which is ubicated in... you guess! London!. After a bloody battle between normands and anglosaxons troops, William won the battle and his crown himself like King of England, or between us... King of Angland, this is "Land of the Anglos". So, this guy was named like William The Conqueror and his blood has been in each King and Queen of England until today. Yes, the Queen Elizabeth II is descendent of William the Conqueror. And William didnt spoke English. In Normandy, they spoke Latin and a proto-French language. So, when he come to the island, with him come that language, and with the time, the frech culture together with the anglosaxon culture got originated the english language that we are using today! And not only the language, many of the classic imaginary that we have about the ancient England, the Kingdom of England in the Middle Age, it started with the invasion of William the Conqueror and his victory in the Battle of Hastings in 1066, the battle that let him become in a Kings that in a way or other, stay alive in the culture of Great Britain.

Scene of the Battle of Hastings in the Bayeux Tapestry, a piece of cloth made between 1066 and 1082.
In the scene, the normand heavy cavalry is charging against the anglosaxon spearmens.

Transcendence is love.

I have many ambitions, from complete my career until visit different places. But if I have to talk about just one, I would talk about the main one. From my childhood i have the desire for achieve something special in my life, something that it would let me be transcendent for someone or for something. When I was a child, i did think that being someone famous in the history it would be a way to achieve that; maybe a politician, maybe a militar or a astronaut. But later, near of the present, I notice thay maybe its there other ways to do that. Be a father (or mother if you want to be), be a friend, do something significative for someone, etc. There are to many things that we can do or say, and sometimes them can be viewed like something so daily, but for someone else it can be very important; so important that it can generate that your face, your name, your story of that day or of all your life would be remember for that person and others and other.

Transcendence is not only reaching big achievments in a famous sense. Transcendence can be reached sharing with someone in a particular moment, in a particular time, in a particular way. I think now that the transcendence is not only reached by myself. Transcendence its share. Its be me and someone else at the same time. Transcendence is have not only a singular way, but have a multiple road with multiple people to once.

Conjure up the past

I am going to talk about a particular song that it has been crucial since a few years ago. I said since because it still being important and rebuilding his meanings to me. The type of music i dont know how label it, but it is trascendental the musical instruments taking part in this piece, from electrycal guitars until charangos. Bersuit Vergarabat is a famous band of rock in Argentina, but many of theirs song go beyond of this genre. Vuelos is a song that the band dedicate to the relatives of the people killed and vanished by the Militar Dictatorship of Argentina. It is a song that cross mountains, deserts and forests until other countries of America. From my personal interpretation can be taked in many ways of meanings from his lyrics. The main toppic is about someone that is not with us and we just have they memorie. What it remains? How ourselves, the lives, will be go on without that person. A grave? A thing that evocate a particular memorie? A feel of solitude and insignificance. A feel about the time is inevitable and that all of us will be reached by his effects someday. The thing is that sometimes it pass too fast and pass to many things, but it’s not enough.

"Your face it is banishing

Its dye of grey

You will be a solitude stone

You detach from me

I remain in you

Now my eyes are of mud

In the flood

Its growing, its decreacing

It appear and then its go".

Portrait from the album Libertinaje (1998)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lsiamo1iB-Q

The ones without names

I feel uncomfortable answering this type of question, because the people chooses are always from a same category. They would have a intensive education, wealth, cultural capital, privileges, etc. Presidents, politicians, military, artists, and other etc. I think that if want to know the best of the “cultural spirit” of Chile; we have to look in other place. We need to review that other place without a own name, there where the shape of something knowed it’s not clear, but in one or other form, we know about it. If I have to think in people that place in the stage of the best Chileans, I think in first place in whose that died probably without a name in his grave, bleeding because the injustice that is part of the blood of this country. The fallen ones from Santa María school, in Iquique, and all the miners and they family’s that lays under the ground in common graves, with bullets in their bodies that were tear apart in name of the order and the progress, just like the banner of Brazil. They and other people at our history, like the indigenous peoples from the invasion and conquest of the Spanish, the peasants that were dressed like soldiers for fight for one or other chiefman , like O’higgins in the Independence War or Baquedano in the Pacific War. The “Chaucha revolution” was an example from a collective anger, and “No More” feel. Those that had the voice, the bravery, the will to do something against the order, those that put they screams and in the air, fulfilling it with their hard words and fists, they deserve the honour of the persistence of the time, the achievement of the transcendence. They were bleeding for us, for our injustice, and for chance to do something about that. I just would ask them about what its worth at the end of all, their names, their stories. I would ask them for forgiveness. 

Fishing some fishes with taste to fresh fish.

 If it about a favorite food, it would be definitively the fish, In all they forms, since the tuna can until the most gourmets works with special fishes. Today I did ate it in a new discovery that I did when I walk until a Santander bank in the south portion of Macul Street. There I found a restobar called La Capital, where I was attracted by a beautiful message in a board which it says “Fried fish with rice/fries and beer for just $3.500 Chilean pesos, which its very cheap compared with some specialized places how for example the Mercado Central (Central Market), here in Santiago. It was a very gladly thing for this day, because discover something new that makes you feel happy it makes worth your day.

I have a friend who lives in Concepcion and he always mock above the fish that we consume in Santiago, because it’s not fresh, always freezing, being very different to the fish that he consume in his city and especially in the Talcahuano harbor. Maybe he is right; it’s not the same quality about the fresh and tastes of the fishes. But I don’t care much. I enjoy the fish every time that I can afford it. I had a think when I was a kid, just after to see a movie about a convict sentenced to death, to whom was granted a last meal that he can choose, and for him was a bucket from the Kentucky Fried Chickens franchise. If I was him, I just ask for two fried fishes with fries and potatoes with mayo, and a good white wine or an amber beer.  That would be a good farewell.

Rightfulls and sinners.

Actually i am not reading nothing different to the texts of my career (A sad thing, i know). When i have some free time or the breaks between archaeology papers, i like to read about doubts that i have the history of the war. I am subscribed in Facebook to some pages about universal history, in particular about the World War Two. For example, i remember an article about the deploy of the german army in the Spanish Civil War, in the early 30’s of the past century. It’s called “The test war”, Germans and italians did participated in this war giving logistic support, airstrikes, training and modern gear to the ultra-nationalist spanish party, the Franco’s group side, creating a special group called “Legion Condor”. This fact it's important because the axis members did put in they first test fire some new weapons, technologies and tactics, for the eventual war with Poland and the URSS, that we know like the World War Two. They tested tanks in massive scale, airborne movements, new airplanes like the bombers that were used to bombing the Guernica town, strike that was portrayed by Pablo Picasso in his famous paint. The Franquist party said to the germans that in the river near of Guernica it were some republican fortified positions and that they need air support, given them the grids where to strike. Then, the germans bombers did destroy the whole town, killing and wounding a lot of civilians. Never was confirmed that were republican soldiers in Guernica, but that didn't care to the germans. They had tested they planes, ready for drop more bombs, now in the rest of Europe and in Africa.

Guernica paint, by Pablo Picasso

Heinkel He-111 Bomber dropping his cargo

A unknown knowed

Flavio is a friend that i know him from above 3 years ago in the Internet. We knew each other in the context of a online game, which we had played it for a few months, before to stop the game,for my first year in the university and also because his PC was broken. We start to chat frequently above 1 year and half later, when we rejoin to play that game. In that context, in the winter of the last year, i did a travel to the north of Chile with other friend. Were magical weeks, until the return, where we were with very few money. So, we were in a truck stop in middle of a industrial district at the south exit of Antofagasta and our only hope to come to Santiago in that same night was take a bus in that truck stop, and probably the bus crew will charge our money left, but it was insufficient. So i called to Flavio, without has been saw it never in my life, and only knowing him by internet. I thought in he like the first option in my mind, i don't know why. And when i tell him my situation, he lend me money for the travel to Santiago, and that for me was a very great and special sample of friendship. We knew each other in person a few months later, in the spring, when i go to a congress about Archaeology in Concepcion, the place where he lives. He was a great guide and a trusty friend. He came to Santiago for a musical concert in the winter of this year and we had shared a couple of days walking in the city. We still playing things in internet, so i just saw him just two times in my life, but i feel in he a true friend.