Rosa Primavera: Letra: Fernando Iturburu. Música: Rick Davies

Me  contaba Rick que en Colombia (Cali) esta canción se escuchaba con fuerza y era la primera de ese momento o estaba entre las primeras, y que lo entrevistaban a él con afán en las radios (buen dato). Esta canción de amor la escribí para mi madre, Armenia Matilde Rivadeneira Peralta, luego de que ella murió, cuando me di cuenta de que siempre iba a estar conmigo y yo con ella, como ocurre generalmente con todo hijo y sus padres (de ellos venimos y a ellos vamos)... La parte que dice "eres fruta, eres canción" es un reciclaje del título/unas líneas de un cuento de la Generación del 30 (les pongo de tarea el autor y el título). Quizá es la más personal y afanosa. El cantante es el mismo de Salsa Picante y, asumo, por eso quizá no se preocupó del mensaje romántico, cuanto de dejarla como parte del estido "salsa dura" (o gorda, como dicen los boricuas).

BAILE DE AMOR. Música: Rick Davies, Letra: Fernando Iturburu

Es una canción escrita pensando en mi hija mayor, mi amada Fabia Matilde, es también un tema de amor y, recuerdo, es muy autobiográfico, pues recién hace pocos años descubrí la felicidad de ser padre (el tiempo pasó pasó... etc). la parte que dice: muero por sus grandes ojos hechiceros... son los ojos de mi hija: oscuros, grandes y hermosos. El cantante, sin embargo, me pidió permiso para hacer unos breves cambios y aumentar la tensión sensual, desconociendo él la razón original, y pensando -por suerte- más en la manera de captar la etención de los bailadores y las parejas. pero es originalmente una canción pensando en mi Fabia Matilde.

REQUIEM POR UN AMIGO: Música: Rick Davies, Letra: Fernando Iturburu

Aquí una canción que escribí pensando en El Justiciero, aquel personaje del "bajo mundo" de Manabí. Esta es su historia, tal como me la contaron, pero también es la historia de mi querido Memo (La Memoria) y un poquito la del Chugo, de Carlos Ríos, de Monín Tenén, David Ruiz, Bolivar Rodríguez y la de todos nuestros muertos siempre vivos y la de todos los que crecimos en el barrio, allá en el sur de Guayaquil. Ya le rindo homenaje (aún estando en vida, sin que él lo hubiera sabido) en unas páginas del tercer libro del Cholo Cepeda (La Trilogía Chola): El regreso del Cholo Cepeda.

¿Quién dice que no se puede escribir letras de salsa?

Aquí la portada del último CD de Rick Davies que incluye cuatro canciones de autoría de este bello ejemplar del Trópico, otrora zambo y meluna, agora ya calvino. Las canciones son: Baile de amor, Requiem por un amigo, Lady K, y El hombre de Panamá. Anteriormente salieron Rosa Primavera, Fiesta en el Bronx, Habana nocturna, que posteo y comento de puro vanidoso.

El proceso de escritura de las letras de canciones para Rick Davies ha sido siempre muy divertido: él me pasa la banda musical y yo trabajo la letra. Por respeto, siempre le pregunto si tiene alguna sugerencia temática, pero él más o menos pasa de eso, y tengo total libertad para introducir material personal o de otro tipo. Una vez que la escucho hago el conteo silábico y trabajo con rima, generalmente asonante. Los versos pueden ser dividios en dos partes. La canción, como toda canción de género popular, debe contar una historia, algo que recuerde el bailador, el que escucha, la pareja. Una vez que tengo lista la letra me doy unos días para pulirla. Nunca le dedico mucho tiempo a la primera versión y la hago en tiempo cerrado, muy limitado, unas pocas horas (bielas incluídas, pero nada de emplutarse), hasta tener la melodía bajo control y dejar que las palabras fluyan naturalmente. Al final, me reúno con Rick en su estudio y hacemos las correcciones necesarias según el corte de la canción. El resto pertenece al gordo y al cantante.

Sería bueno que este espíritu de colaboración, claramente beneficioso, existiera entre músicos salseros y otros y poetas o escritores de Ecuador y el mundo. Es escandaloso que habiendo tantos poemas hermosos en, por ejemplo, Ecuador, los músicos nacionales se conformen con la repetición o con textos grotescos (es decir, que mezclan lo bello y lo repugnante) como se nota en varias letras de cantantes "urbanos" (ponle tú los nombres que quieras, que para achaque hasta ahí nomás llego).

Ahora, mira más arriba en donde incluyo las cancones en youtube: salen ya.

(quedan doa que aún nadie ha subido/posteado, en mi archivo un bolerito viejo y otra salsa-jazz que espera su oportunidad).

Gramsci on "the formation of intellectuals"

en: http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/10/06/gramsci-formation-intellectuals

Gramsci on "the formation of intellectuals"

Submitted on 6 October, 2010 - 20:16

Author: 

 Antonio Gramsci

The problem of creating a new stratum of intellectuals consists in the critical elaboration of the intellectual activity that exists in everyone at a certain degree of development...

The traditional and vulgarised type of the intellectual is given by the man of letters, the philosopher, the artist. Therefore journalists, who claim to be men of letters, philosophers, artists, also regard themselves as the "true" intellectuals. In the modern world, technical education, closely bound to industrial labour even at the most primitive and unqualified level, must form the basis of the new type of intellectual.

On this basis the weekly Ordine Nuovo [edited by Gramsci in Turin from 1919] worked to develop certain forms of new intellectualism and to determine its new concepts, and this was not the least of the reasons for its success, since such a conception corresponded to latent aspirations and conformed to the development of the real forms of life.

The mode of being of the new intellectual can no longer consist in eloquence, which is an exterior and momentary mover of feelings and passions, but in active participation in practical life, as constructor, organiser, "permanent persuader" and not just a simple orator (but superior at the same time to the abstract mathematical spirit); from technique-as-work one proceeds to technique-as-science and to the humanistic conception of history, without which one remains "specialised" and does not become "directive" (specialised and political).

Thus there are historically formed specialised categories for the exercise of the intellectual function. They are formed in connection with all social groups, but especially in connection with the more important, and they undergo more extensive and complex elaboration in connection with the dominant social group.

One of the most important characteristics of any group that is developing towards dominance is its struggle to assimilate and to conquer "ideologically" the traditional intellectuals, but this assimilation and conquest is made quicker and more efficacious the more the group in question succeeds in simultaneously elaborating its own organic intellectuals.

The enormous development of activity and organisation of education in the broad sense in the societies that emerged from the medieval world is an index of the importance assumed in the modern world by intellectual functions and categories. Parallel with the attempt to deepen and to broaden the "intellectuality" of each individual, there has also been an attempt to multiply and narrow the various specialisations. This can be seen from educational institutions at all levels, up to and including the organisms that exist to promote so-called "high culture" in all fields of science and technology...

It is worth noting that the elaboration of intellectual strata in concrete reality does not take place on the terrain of abstract democracy but in accordance with very concrete traditional historical processes. Strata have grown up which traditionally "produce" intellectuals and these strata coincide with those which have specialised in "saving", i.e. the petty and middle landed bourgeoisie and certain strata of the petty and middle urban bourgeoisie.

The varying distribution of different types of school (classical and professional) over the "economic" territory and the varying aspirations of different categories within these strata determine, or give form to, the production of various branches of intellectual specialisation. Thus in Italy the rural bourgeoisie produces in particular state functionaries and professional people, whereas the urban bourgeoisie produces technicians for industry. Consequently it is largely northern Italy which produces technicians and the South which produces functionaries and professional men.

The relationship between the intellectuals and the world of production is not as direct as it is with the fundamental social groups but is, in varying degrees, "mediated" by the whole fabric of society and by the complex of superstructures, of which the intellectuals are, precisely, the "functionaries". It should be possible both to measure the "organic quality" [organicità] of the various intellectual strata and their degree of connection with a fundamental social group, and to establish a gradation of their functions and of the superstructures from the bottom to the top (from the structural base upwards).

What we can do, for the moment, is to fix two major superstructural "levels": the one that can be called "civil society", that is the ensemble of organisms commonly called "private", and that of "political society" or "the State". These two levels correspond on the one hand to the function of "hegemony" which the dominant group exercises throughout society and on the other hand to that of "direct domination" or command exercised through the State and "juridical" government.

The functions in question are precisely organisational and connective. The intellectuals are the dominant group’s "deputies" exercising the subaltern functions of social hegemony and political government. These comprise:

1. The "spontaneous" consent given by the great masses of the population to the general direction imposed on social life by the dominant fundamental group; this consent is "historically" caused by the prestige (and consequent confidence) which the dominant group enjoys because of its position and function in the world of production.

2. The apparatus of state coercive power which "legally" enforces discipline on those groups who do not "consent" either actively or passively. This apparatus is, however, constituted for the whole of society in anticipation of moments of crisis of command and direction when spontaneous consent has failed.

This way of posing the problem has as a result a considerable extension of the concept of intellectual, but it is the only way which enables one to reach a concrete approximation of reality...

The political party for some social groups is nothing other than their specific way of elaborating their own category of organic intellectuals directly in the political and philosophical field and not just in the field of productive technique. These intellectuals are formed in this way and cannot indeed be formed in any other way, given the general character and the conditions of formation, life and development of the social group...

That all members of a political party should be regarded as intellectuals is an affirmation that can easily lend itself to mockery and caricature. But if one thinks about it nothing could be more exact. There are of course distinctions of level to be made. A party might have a greater or lesser proportion of members in the higher grades or in the lower, but this is not the point. What matters is the function, which is directive and organisational, i.e. educative, i.e. intellectual...

From The Formation of Intellectuals, in Selections from the Prison Notebooks.