Cultura

The magician Juan Tamariz has passed away at the age of 83, as confirmed by his daughter Ana in a message on social media. Tamariz, born on October 18, 1942, found success in the 1970s, when he was recognized in France, which led to greater success in Spain. His card tricks and illusions, his eccentric stage presence, his top hat, and his way of celebrating the audience’s surprise with the solemn notes of an imaginary violin (“naraniaronaniaro…”) resonated in a society that raised him as an icon.

The life of Eli Sharabi changed forever on October 7, 2023, when a Hamas commando stormed the Be’eri kibbutz and took him hostage to the nearby Gaza Strip, where he remained for 491 days hoping to reunite with his wife and daughters, unaware that they had been killed that very day. That traumatic experience is what he recounts in Rehén (Nagrela Editores), a testimony of his struggle for survival under inhuman conditions.

The best biographies are often the result of an obsession. And then there are those driven by a love of art, which adds a plus to any portrait of an artist. The writer Marta San Miguel (Santander, 1981), journalist and José Hierro Poetry Prize winner, has novelized the life of Enric Granados (1867-1916) alternating the not so well-known story of the composer from Lleida with a narrative that follows his footsteps from a contemporary perspective.

More than one person decided last February that this summer they would spend it in the isolated and gloomy moors of Yorkshire, in northern England. Not to take refuge in a place with less stifling temperatures, but because they were stunned after seeing Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi act in those settings in the latest audiovisual adaptation of Wuthering Heights, directed by Emerald Fennell. The film unleashed Brontëmania and caused, on the one hand, the novel’s sales to soar by 504% in just two days, according to data provided by Amazon; and, on the other hand, hotels and tourist apartments in the area to notice a significant increase in occupancy.

I said I wasn’t going to look and I looked. And, like Lot’s wife, whom God did not consider necessary to name in Genesis – perhaps because she was a woman – what I saw turned me into a statue. My retinas, into salt. Goosebumps. An ecstatic scream of which I was not aware until…

In its effort to open its doors to the entire public and reach all audiences, the Museo Nacional del Prado has prepared a special program to celebrate the solar eclipse this Wednesday, August 12, the astronomical event not only of the summer, but one could say, due to its exceptionality and rarity, of this 21st century.

In 2003, Javier Elzo sparked some controversy with statements to La Vanguardia. The sociologist dared to say that the botellón favored communication among young people. In his opinion, that shared and face-to-face outdoor activity humanized the…

Joker to the core, perhaps to challenge the archetype of the solemn and grumpy French writer, David Foenkinos (Paris, 1974) talks about his latest novel, Todos aman a Clara (Alfaguara), as if it were not about him. But he admits that there is a lot of himself in its pages.

When I was a child, I loved receiving wedding invitations at home. As an adult, a wedding is simply one of the worst pieces of news one can receive. That invitation should be replaced by a black dot like in Treasure Island where pirates received their death sentence. Something similar happens with hotel stays. At first glance: Who doesn’t want to go to a good hotel? From which day of the stay does the hotel start to do harm? What does a hotel room, as an emblematic non-place, do to your body night after night? You can never trust a hotel room because it is made not to be honest with anyone. It flatters you, welcomes you, makes you feel special when to it you are just another, the same as those before and after.

Summer is the best time of year to enjoy movies with the family. The long school holidays are always more pleasant and refreshing when planning an afternoon with the little ones at home in a dark room where you can escape the intense heat and, at the same time, ready to recover that child we all carry inside to dive into endless entertaining adventures. Animation is always a foolproof genre. Titles as attractive as those that arrived at the beginning of the summer season like Toy Story 5, Minions & Monsters, or Disney’s live-action Vaiana have dominated the Spanish box office – between the three they have grossed more than 32 million euros and nearly six million viewers – achieving success for family productions to which several new releases join starting today.