Frank Sinatra's songs + lyrics

OM SINATRA is a very enjoyable section of an Argentinian website for learners of English. Frank Sinatra's voice and his clear diction are perfect ingredients for practising English, so this section provides wide possibilities for ESL students and teachers. Here you will find 50 best lyrics, together with audios, some videos, glossaries and explanations. Choose your favourite song with on-screen original lyrics. Enjoy timeless classics such as My Way, New York, New York, or Strangers in the Night!

The Prado Museum: A Collection of Wonders_documentary

We are in one of the temples of world art, a site of memory and a mirror to the present with 1700 works exhibited and a further 7000 art treasures preserved there. Its collection tells the story of kings, queens, dynasties, wars, defeats and victories, as well as the story of the feelings and emotions of the men and women of yesteryear and of today, whose lives are intertwined with the museum’s: rulers, painters, artists, architects, collectors, curators, intellectuals, visitors.

In 2019, the year of its 200^th Anniversary celebrations, telling the story of the Prado in Madrid from the day it was “founded” – that 19^th November 1819 when mention was first made of the Museo Real de Pinturas – means covering not only the last 200 years, but at least six centuries of history. The life of the Prado collection began with the birth of Spain as a nation and the marriage between Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabel of Castile, a union that marked the start of the great Spanish Empire. Yet, for a long time over the centuries, painting had been a universal language that knew no boundaries. If there is one museum where it is clear that painting was not affected by nationalism, then that museum must surely be the Prado, with its eclectic and multifaceted collections demonstrating that art has no passports limiting its circulation, that rather it is a universal means to understand and convey the thoughts and feelings of human beings.

For this reason, taking the leading role in THE PRADO MUSEUM. A COLLECTION OF WONDERS are its art masterpieces and the great artists who made them, the crowned heads who collected them, but also the European and libertarian inspiration behind a museum and its wealth of art treasures and stories. Furthermore, there is an extra-special feature: Oscar® winning actor Jeremy Irons will be guiding spectators on a discovery of a heritage of beauty and art. Starting from the Salón de Reinos, in a deliberately bare architectural style that comes alive with people, lights and projections, taking the visitor back to the glorious past of the Spanish monarchy and the Siglo de Oro, when hanging from the walls then were many of the masterpieces exhibited today at the Prado. At that time, the space was used for dancing, holding parties and giving theatrical performances. This was a vibrant core of Madrid and of Spain as a whole, as was the Barrio de las Letras, where writers and artists from the Siglo de Oro lived, and, in the 20th century, the Residencia de Estudiantes, where intellectuals from the Generation of 1927 would meet, including Buñuel, Lorca and Dalí.

The paintings in the Prado reflect a unique epic era, that gave rise to one of the most important museums in the world. This is a collection put together “more with the heart than the head” because kings and queens chose only what they loved. It is an inventory of tastes and pleasures that tells the story of public events, dynasties, cardinals, wars and coalitions. It is also an inventory of private matters: a wedding, a lavishly laid table, the madness of a queen. It is a close network of crowned heads, hidalgos, majas y caballeros, each with their lives, truths and messages. It is the story of an era of great patronage, of the Spanish monarchs’ love for the great masters, like Goya, whose strong presence at the Prado is a body of work totalling over nine hundred items, including most of his drawings and letters. Goya’s art has influenced many modern artists, as is the case with 3^rd May 1808, a painting that depicts the effects of the Spanish revolt against the French army. This work would become a symbol of all wars and would give Picasso the inspiration for his Guernica. Like Picasso, Dalí and García Lorca were also captivated by the museum, while writer and painter Antonio Saura, who would continuously go there to bask in its magical atmosphere, called the Prado “a wealth of intensity”. So, this is art that illuminates the present and asks us: what has the Prado Museum been in these two hundred years, what is it today and what will it continue to represent for future generations – this living museum, a beacon for all Spaniards during the dark moments of the dictatorship, and a home to return to for exiled artists and intellectuals?

The aim of the authors, consequently, was to tell the story not only of the formal beauty and enchanting appeal of the Prado collection but also about how much the themes of the works exhibited are current today, and how through the history of art, they can also be a narrative of society, with its ideals, its prejudices, vices, new ideas, scientific discoveries, human psychology and fashions.

THE PRADO MUSEUM. A COLLECTION OF WONDERS is not only about these extraordinary works of art, which are the heart and soul of the documentary, but also about the landscape, the Royal palaces and buildings that set the scene and saw the birth and development of these art collections. This heritage is universal and includes not only the works of Velázquez, Rubens, Titian, Mantegna, Bosch, Goya, El Greco preserved in the Prado, but also the Escorial, the Pantheon of the Royal family, the Royal Palace of Madrid, the Convent of Las Descalzas Reales, the Salón de Reinos. It is a fresco contrasting interiors and exteriors, paintings and palaces, brushstrokes and gardens. 

The birth of the Prado Museum is an engaging story. In 1785 Charles III of Bourbon commissioned court architect Juan de Villanueva to design a building to house the Gabinete de Historia Natural. It would never serve that purpose. The building was transformed into the Museum we know today. Walking through this place of beauty means never ceasing to be amazed, removing prejudices and contradictions, discovering the myths and symbols of a wonderful, sometimes revolutionary, world. It means an interactive exchange through the history of art. It means being enraptured by masterpieces such as the Deposition by Flemish artist Van der Weyden, Adam and Eve by Titian, the Black Paintings of Goya’s later years, Las Meninas by Velázquez (“The air in Las Meninas is the best quality air that exists“, declared Dalí), El Greco’s twisted, elongated, unconventional figures, The Garden of Earthly Delights by Bosch, which arouses curiosity, expectation, attention in visitors of any nationality and culture, or the work of the Flemish Clara Peeters, who had the courage to paint miniature self-portraits in her still-life paintings and stake a claim for the role of female artists, or even Ribera’s The Bearded Lady, where a woman, face covered by a thick beard, breastfeeds the new-born baby she holds in her arms.

Next showing at Avenida cinema: Thursday, January 23, 8pm

ERASMUS Programme 30th Anniversary

30 Aniversario Erasmus+

De Erasmus a Erasmus+

Treinta años enriqueciendo vidas y abriendo mentes

Erasmus+ es el Programa integrado de la Unión Europea para la Educación, Formación, Juventud y Deporte.

El Programa original ERASMUS (European Region Action Scheme for the Mobility of University Students) comenzó en 1987 como un programa de intercambio que ofrecía a estudiantes universitarios la posibilidad de aprender y enriquecerse estudiando en el extranjero. A lo largo de los últimos 30 años ha ampliado su alcance y envergadura. Hoy Erasmus+ ofrece un mayor número de oportunidades tanto a personas como a organizaciones, como por ejemplo ir de voluntario o aprendiz a países extranjeros y cooperar en proyectos conjuntos. El Deporte también se ha convertido en una parte importante de Erasmus+ y, además, actualmente el Programa se extiende a países de fuera de Europa.

De hecho, desde el lanzamiento del programa Erasmus+ en 2014, dos millones de personas de todos los ámbitos se han beneficiado de las oportunidades que ofrece, tales como periodos de estudios, de prácticas o voluntariado, adquiriendo experiencia en el extranjero. Y durante estos últimos 30 años ya han participado un total de cinco millones de jóvenes.

Entre 2017 y 2020, Erasmus+ brindará oportunidades a más de dos millones de personas en toda Europa y resto del mundo.

Love Machines

Why do we feel so compelled to seek out emotional attachments with mechanical life forms? JOHNATHAN BELLS reports.

Few technologies have been so extensively foreshadowed as robotics. For nearly 100 years, we’ve indulged in an array of speculative fictions that have defined the form, function and social impact of robots far in advance of the available technology. As a result, automation is treated more as a cultural trope than an economic threat. All the while the robots are fermenting the stealthiest industrial revolution in history.

We delved behind the scenes at the London Science Museum’s recent exhibition about our obsession with mechanical life forms. As well as asking the big questions about robotic pasts, presents and futures, the show offers up a rogue’s gallery of android approximations of specialist applications, from healthcare through to entertainment.

Popular perception of robots rarely aligns with reality. Large swathes of modern industry are automated beyond the point of no return. Cars, white goods and electronics all depend on robotic manufacture, and the huge labour populations deployed to assemble iPhones, laptops and sneakers are also being usurped by robotic alternatives with no need for dorms or unions. China is the largest buyer of industrial robots in the world. Yet, for most consumers, it matters not a jot if an assembly shop is powered by sweat or sparks; the end result is the same. Instead, we seem hard-wired to seek out emotional attachments with robots, happily ignoring the irreplaceable mechanical ballet of the robotic production line.

Perhaps this is our species’ great mistake; we want robots to be familiar and friendly, whereas their uglier, more adept relatives are quietly doing the heavy lifting we’d rather not deal with. As a result, the path to automation is unstoppable, with global industrial robot sales rising year on year. Change will come with the robotic shift from physical to emotional labour. Projects like Komodroid, a ‘robot newscaster’ that reads headlines without inflection or emotion, letting you project your own feelings, or ROSA (Rob’s Open Source Android) with its imitation of human muscular structures and spooky face-tracking ability, only scratch the surface of our desperation to love, and be loved, by the machine. Many generations of cultural representation have given robots direct access to our heartstrings, and we haven’t even touched on the thorny issue of sex, let alone death.

It’s safe to say that every conceivable human interaction (and form of fluid exchange) will eventually be subcontracted to a machine. Along the way, we’ll take the mandatory trek to the ‘uncanny valley’, a dive into the awkward intersection between true-to-life human features and the skin-crawling consequences of getting it a bit wrong. This partly explains why humanoid, but not human-like, robots generate the most affection among those who interact with them. 

A robot is still best at doing a single thing exceptionally well, be it sifting, sorting, sweeping, welding or stamping. And yet technologists and consumers seem compelled to empower our metal friends to do much, much more. Unfortunately, we have little idea of what will happen once they actually can.

After being shown at the London Science Museum, "Robots" will be showing at the Museum of Science and Industry in Manchester from 19 October 2017 to 15 April 2018 as part of the Manchester Science Festival. [Wallpaper Magazine, September 2017]

The Need to Read

Reading books is one of the most recommended language-learning activities to do outside the classroom. For one thing, reading is free. Also, reading helps you fix the structures you learn in your brain without you even noticing it. 

In hard times like these, when Public Education is subject to continuous budget cutbacks, checking out books freely from the Engineering School Library is one of those treats our diminishing welfare state still can provide for you. Take advantage of it! At the Sala de Autoaprendizaje you will find a collection of about 200 books aimed at A2, B1, B2 and C1 learners. Some of these reading books come with an audio CD. They are a suggestion to help you improve your vocabulary and syntax, and with the audio mp3, improve your comprehension of spoken English. Check some of them out and enjoy reading a good story.

Don't forget there are tons of free books on the Internet that you can download too, or read them online; a good place to start is Project Gutenberg, which has more than 50,000 free books. And, if you are using a Kindle, you can use the English-English dictionary or an English-Spanish dictionary for difficult words.

Reporting From America

By Carlos Martín Gaebler

While flying across the Atlantic to visit the United States again after 25 years, I started pondering and realized I was actually travelling to ground zero of the current financial crisis. Don’t miss Inside Job, a must-see documentary where Mat Damon articulately narrates how it all happened, unmasks the greedy predators that caused it leaving millions of people impowerished throughout the world, and explains how we have all ended up in such economic despair. Also, watch out for Ryan Gosling’s upcoming, much-talked-about documentary #ReGENERATION, about political apathy among American youngsters.

Curiosity, nostalgia and gratitude took me back to Chapel Hill, NC, to revisit UNC, my American alma mater, a quarter of a century later. My years at UNC helped shape the man and the teacher I am today. Seeing present-day pictures of Chapel Hill on the Internet had definitely put back Carolina on my mind, as we Tar Heels say, and rekindled the urge to tread the territory of the best three years of my youth. I was received with open arms by my American host family at Raleigh-Durham airport, and a few minutes later, when I arrived in Chapel Hill, time suddenly compressed and the magic started again.

I found myself recuperating those olfactory memories of my American youth: the smell of cedar wood, of wisteria, of Dove soap, etc., all stirring up a kind of sensual link with the past. If only I could bottle them up or insert a link to them! It was like this: The place holds the memories while my brain also stores those memories. When my brain and body went back to the place, the memories replayed themselves. I was on a high from minute one!

I have felt welcomed as a sort of prodigal son (like my friend Thomas predicted) coming back to his second home. Everything surpassed my expectations, as I indulged in letting myself be pampered with attentions by my American family and friends. If you believe in heaven, then Chapel Hill must surely be the Southern part of it, because it feels like a 24-hour happy hour!

Friendliness was in the air, as I kept running into young students on campus who would  greet you with a How ya doin? and a big smile, two distinctive features of Southern culture in America. I remember finding that carefree spirit of youth, that rather non-standoffish attitude  endearing and captivating when I was a 22-year-old student at Carolina. However, I am also aware that this is not a real cross-section of US youth or even North Carolina youth, as these are students who, for example, had to have been in the top 10% of their graduating class at highschool before they could even apply to study at UNC . Be that as it may, I enjoyed their good manners and taking their photos.

Probably one of the highlights of my trip was President’s Obama passionate speech on education at UNC’s Carmichael Auditorium to a cheering 8,000-student crowd, and which I was privileged to follow on TV just a mere 100 metres away at Davis Library: “Higher Education is the single most important investment in your future… I am only here today because of scholarships and student loans… An average [American] student graduates with a $25,000 student loan debt!”

I must agree with Antonio Muñoz Molina, former Director of the Cervantes Institute in New York City, when he points out that when Spaniards and Americans get together they have the ability to get on well with each other, as they share a common sense of down-to-earth friendliness and lack of formality, which makes it easier for us to approach each other. I recommend his column Desde este lado, desde el otro lado.

Moving on to other matters, if you stay away from fast food, network television and extreme air-conditioning, you are just fine in America. It seems to me that, while many around the world are trying to downsize and simplify things in order to reach a more sustainable lifestyle, America is upsizing, so to speak, reluctant to give up their insaciable consumption of energy resources (the unsustainable abuse of air-conditioning being but one example).

My last thought takes me back to more social considerations. After having spent 10 days in Cuba recently and another 10 days in the United States, I am struck by how some manage to survive with so little and maintain their dignity while others live in such blatant opulence and accumulate such dispensable wealth. The gods are so fucking unfair!

This has probably been the most emotional, uplifting trip in my life. Short and sweet. I promise to be back soon for more.  

 

The Shot 29.03.82

Whose shot was it?

14 de abril

República

MANUEL VICENT

Existen reservas naturales a las que no se puede acceder sin un permiso especial y gracias a la protección de las leyes algunas islas, ciertos parajes, se mantienen todavía incontaminados. Esos espacios preservados sirven entre otras cosas para purificar también nuestra mente por el solo hecho de viajar a ellos con el pensamiento. Aunque sea imposible llegar al corazón virgen de la naturaleza, para sentirse igualmente limpio basta con imaginar que en algún lugar del planeta aún quedan ríos azules, valles intactos no especulados y montes donde subsisten las mismas plantas autóctonas desde el cuaternario. En cierto sentido la Segunda República es también una reserva política que habita en la mente de muchos españoles sin la necesidad de volver a ella sino con la imaginación, como un ejercicio regenerador y didáctico. La República supuso en la historia de España una corriente de aire puro de renovación basada en la inteligencia, en la libertad, en la cultura y en la justicia social, que terminó en un baño de sangre. Aunque para algunos ciudadanos la Constitución de 1931 fuera un hecho nefasto, la causa de toda desdicha, aquella aspiración de modernidad frustrada por la violencia fraticida supone para otros españoles un hito nostálgico, como un amor perdido de juventud. Pero por fortuna el recuerdo de la Segunda República estará siempre asociado a las flores de acacia de mitad de abril, a la Niña Bonita del azar, a una primavera inevitable, que se renueva cada año como un lugar iniciático adonde uno debe volver para regenerarse políticamente. Sin duda el recuerdo de aquel tiempo está dorado por el polvo amarillo. Puede que aquellos próceres republicanos que venían del regeneracionismo con el empeño de una España europeísta, laica, racional y progresista fueran unos ingenuos cuyo sueño se vio devorado por las fuerzas ancestrales de la España negra, pero su estela quedó en suspensión en la atmósfera y cada abril se posa en el inconsciente colectivo. Si la República es hoy una meta inalcanzable, no por eso deja de ser una reserva espiritual, un paradigma político de la memoria, lo mismo que ese territorio imaginario donde se extienden litorales todavía vírgenes y discurren ríos azules en cuyas aguas es obligado volver siempre a bañarse. 

El País, 17/04/2011

It is possible to respect the believers but not the belief

By Timothy Garton Ash

Last weekend I went and sang a lot of words that I don't believe. Do I think an angel appeared to a woman called Mary roughly 2007 years ago and told her she had become pregnant without sleeping with Joseph? I don't. Do I think Good King Wenceslas tramped out into the snow to bring "yonder peasant" food and wine? Not likely. Yet the words were beautiful and familiar, the medieval church was candlelit, my family was with me, and I was moved.

In the next few days, hundreds of millions of people will, like me, go to sing, often with gusto and delight, lines they do not believe or, at best, only half-believe. According to a recent Harris opinion poll for the Financial Times, only one in three people in Britain say they are "a believer". In France, it's less than one in three; even in Italy, it's less than two thirds; only in the United States does the figure exceed three quarters. And it would be interesting to know what proportion of that minority of true believers in Britain and France are Muslims.

That set me thinking - in this extended festive season of Bodhi Day, Hanukah, Christmas, Eid-ul-Adha, Oshogatsu, Guru Gobind Singh's birthday and Makar Sankranti- about what it means to say that we respect someone else's religion in a multicultural society. It seems to me that the biggest problem many post-Christian or nominally Christian Europeans have with the Muslims living amongst them is not that those Muslims are believers in a different religion from Christianity but that they are believers in a religion at all.

This baffles the intellectually significant minority of Europeans who are, so to speak, devout atheists, proselytising believers in the truths discovered by science. For them the issue is not any particular religious superstition, but superstition itself. It is also what worries the much larger number of Europeans who themselves have some vague, lukewarm religious beliefs, or are mildly agnostic, but put other things first. If only the Muslims wouldn't take their Islam so seriously! And, many Europeans would add, if only the Americans wouldn't take their Christianity so seriously!

Now one can argue about whether the world would be a better place if everyone became convinced of the atheistic truths of natural science, or at least took their religion as lightly as most part-time, demi-Christian Europeans do. (Myself, I'm agnostic on that point.) But clearly this can't be the premise on which we build a multicultural society in a free country. That would be just as intolerant as the practice of those majority Muslim countries where no other faiths than Islam are allowed.

On the contrary, in free countries every faith must be allowed - and every faith must be allowed to be questioned, fundamentally, outspokenly, even intemperately and offensively, without fear of reprisal. Richard Dawkins, the Oxford scientist, must be free to say that God is a delusion and Alistair McGrath, the Oxford theologian, must be free to retort that Dawkins is deluded; a conservative journalist must be free to write that the Prophet Muhammad was a paedophile and a Muslim scholar must be free to brand that journalist an ignorant Islamophobe. That's the deal in a free country: freedom of religion and freedom of expression as two sides of the same coin. We must live and let live - a demand that is not as minimal as it sounds, when one thinks of the death threats against Salman Rushdie and the Danish cartoonists. The fence that secures this space is the law of the land.

The interesting question is whether there is a kind of respect that goes beyond this minimal law-fenced live-and-let-live yet stops short of either a hypocritical pretence of intellectual respect for the other's beliefs (the currency of much inter-faith polylogue) or unbounded relativism. I think there is. In fact, I would claim that I know there is - and most of us practice it without even thinking about it. We live and work every day with people who hold, in the temples of their hearts, beliefs that we consider certifiably bonkers. If they seem to us good partners, friends, colleagues, we respect them as such - irrespective of their private and perhaps deepest convictions. If they are close to us, we may not merely respect but love them. We love them, while all the time remaining firmly convinced that in some corner of their minds they cling to a load of nonsense.

Routinely, almost instinctively, we distinguish between the belief and the believer. To be sure, it's easier to do that with some beliefs than it is with others. If someone is convinced that 2 + 2 = 5 and the earth is made of cheese, that will impede everyday coexistence a little more. Yet it's amazing what diverse and even wacky beliefs we do, in practice, coexist with quite happily. (The widespread popular faith in astrology is a good example.) That said, the conduct of the believers can affect our judgment of the belief irrespective of its scientific truth-content. For example, I do not believe there is a God and therefore assume that some 2007 years ago a couple called Joseph and Mary just had a baby. But what a man he turned out to be! Like the great Swiss historian Jacob Burckhardt, I can't get anywhere with Christ as God, but as a human being Jesus Christ seems to me a constant and wonderful inspiration - perhaps even, as Burckhardt put it, "the most beautiful figure in world history". And some of his later imitators didn't do so badly either.

My quarrel with the Dawkins school of atheists is not anything they say about the non-existence of God but what they say about Christians and the history of Christianity - much of which is true, but leaves out the other, positive half of the story. And, as the old Yiddish saying goes, a half-truth is a whole lie. In my judgment as a historian of modern Europe, the positive side is larger than the negative. It seems to me self-evident that we would not have the European civilisation we have today without the heritage of Christianity, Judaism and (in a smaller measure, mainly in the middle ages) Islam, which legacy also paved the way, albeit unwittingly and unwillingly, for the Enlightenment. Moreover, some of the most impressive human beings I have met in my own lifetime have been Christians.

"By their fruits ye shall know them." There is a respect that flows from the present conduct of the believers, irrespective of the scientific plausibility of the original belief. A multicultural society can, at best, be an open, friendly competition between Christians, Sikhs, Muslims, Jews, atheists and, indeed, two-plus-two-equals-fivers, to impress us with their character and good works.

Meanwhile, there's the vexed question of the all-purpose multicultural midwinter salutation. "Happy holidays" is impossibly twee and anodyne. I'm afraid I have resorted to "season's greetings", but that's pretty tiresome too. Ideally, one should customise according to recipient - "Merry Christmas", "Happy Eid", "Jolly Oshogatsu", etc - but that is not always possible. Yesterday, I received a card from the British ambassador to Washington which contains an excellent solution. "Yuletide greetings", it said, evoking the Pagan winter solstice (Yule is tomorrow, December 22) but with the hint of a warm-hearted Dickensian Christmas. Perfect.

Good Yule to you all.

Timothy Garton Ash is a historian, political writer and Guardian columnist. He is also professor of European studies in the University of Oxford.

timothygartonash.com

Man's First Step on the Moon

On July 16, 1969, three astronauts embarked on a mission to reach the moon. Four days later, Neil Armstrong and Edwin "Buzz" Aldrin became the first humans to set foot on an extraterrestrial body.

Seville, 40 years after Stonewall

The giant Rainbow Flag erected by Seville's Town Hall at the Glorieta Olímpica, by the Alamillo bridge, to celebrate Gay Pride Week 2009 and commemorate the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots, which marked the start of the gay civil rights movement both in the US and around the world.