Les Luthiers
By Carlos Alberto Montaner
The first time I heard Les Luthiers it was a beautiful cantata dedicated to the laxative. It was titled “Laxatón”. It was delicious. The laughter arose from the incongruity among those young people –we were in 1972– dressed in tailcoats, who did not move a muscle of the face, but spoke of the movement of the intestines, in the middle of a rigorously articulated musical composition. I thought they were great.
He was the bald man in the group and had unusual natural grace. Marcos Mundstock died, a few days ago, at the age of 77. He was the founder of Les Luthiers, a septet, which became a sextet and later became a quintet. It is an excellent Argentine group of comic-musicians, or vice versa, created in 1967 by Gerardo Masana, who died prematurely in 1973.
Musical instrument makers are called luthiers, so the name, in French, reflected one of the most creative facets of the ensemble: They could make interesting music with almost anything that could be blown, strummed, or struck. They invented instruments. Like Leonardo da Vinci, who made a paper organ that sounded reasonably well.
When I was a child, in Cuba, I saw, laughed and enjoyed Gaby, Fofó and Miliki, three Spanish clowns who played different instruments. The group was so welcome in Cuba that they decided to settle in the Island. But, when they were already established, “the Commander arrived and ordered the fun to stop.” The clowns and their families also fled Cuba, among the thousands of compatriots who fled in terror, not without first seeing censored an innocent song that they used to sing: “El ratoncito Miguel” (Miguel the little mouse). Why? Because of a stanza that said: “the thing is / horrifying and really scary.”
But the song didn’t end there. It seemed to State Security that it incited the ruler’s assassination, even if it had been written by Félix B. Caignet (author of the novel The right to be born) long before Fidel Castro appeared in the country’s history. This is how it ended: “You will see / how hungry a mouse will die, / there is no cheese anymore, / much less a ham flake, / we are going to see / who is going to pluck [the cat] Misifú’s heart.” It was intolerable.
I met Gaby, Fofó and Miliki again in Puerto Rico. It was my daughter Gina’s turn to enjoy them. In 1970 I moved to Spain with my family. And there were the “TV clowns,” as they were known, indulging in their ways, as fun and talented as ever. Then the family had grown, and they made my son Carlos happy. It was as if the accordion they played had become the fun soundtrack of our lives.
Les Luthiers are clowns who do not dress as clowns nor do they wear red noses. They make an intelligent humor, sometimes absurd, based on misunderstandings, wordplays and self-degradation. The public loves self-degradation. If there is something insufferable it is petulance. But they are clowns who play roles. Marcos Mundstock was the “Cariblanca”, the perfect clown. He was elegant, he said more or less sensible things with his well-projected baritone voice, and gave cofounder Daniel Ravinovich the opportunity to act as the clown “Augustus.” Ravinovich died in 2015. He had amazing creativity.
It was fortunate for the country’s image that Les Luthiers lived and succeeded in the seventies and eighties of the last century, when Argentina obtained democracy, lost it again and regained it once more. Argentina was much more than the slaughterers and warlocks who took power, and was considerably better than the left-wing butchers who opposed it. Argentina was Borges and Favaloro, it was Sábato and Aguinis, it was Piazzola and Ginastera. It was also Les Luthiers. Goodbye, Master Mundstock. The best tribute the group can give you is to continue making everyone laugh.
Debe ser un humor para boomers
Pues no me dan gracia
Muy infantil
Y predecible
Payasesco
Crecí con otro tipo de humor
Mas profundo
Con una fuerte carga de doble sentido y crítica social
Que no encuentro en estos personajes
Y si lo tienen no conectan conmigo por la forma en q
Lo hacen
Tampoco entiendo por ejemplo
Esa fijación que tiene J con ciertos dibujos animados,
caricaturas y con regirse por dogmas para encontrarle
Sentido a su existencia y actos
Como si no fuera suficiente vivir combatiendo males
sin joder a quien no lo merezca.
Simple.
(Leer Hamlet)
No sé si eso es para encontrarle sentido a mi existencia. ¿No es posible la sencilla explicación de que me gustan?
No siempre hay que buscar complejidades donde pudiera no haberlas. Recuerdo la historia de la niña que todo lo dibujaba en rojo. La maestra estaba preocupadísima preguntando qué trauma tendría y mandó a buscar sicólogos que la sometieron a una serie de tests. Al final se descubrió que solamente tenía un lapiz de colorear de color rojo.
Ahora que estoy haciendo más streaming que de costumbre, después de ver un montón de capítulos de ¨Hitchcock presents¨ y ¨One step beyond¨ me encontré con… ¡Las aventuras de Rin Tin Tin! No creo que ayuden mucho a darle un sentido a mi existencia pero las estoy disfrutando como enano 🙂
¿Por qué ese rechazo a las actividades ¨no útiles¨? ¿Por qué todo tiene que hacerse con algún propósito? Si uno se come un helado no es precisamente por su valor digestivo.
Y mejor no tomar a Hamlet como ejemplo porque, si por algo se caracterizó, fue por lo desacertado de sus decisiones. Gracias a ellas casi no queda títere con cabeza.
Hamlet la obra, no el personaje. Los desastres no
Se dieron por combatir males, sino por ignorarlos.
No existen actividades no útiles. Hasta el tonto
Victor nos enseña algo a todos con sus
pavadas
el arte de vivir es el de saber lidiar con la economia del tiempo, el instinto y el sentido comun. Si ud va ligero de preocupaciones, con la misma ligereza puede estar recorriendo caminos redundantes, y perderse las muchas vidas y mejores alternativas de las que es capaz
Algunas raíces que debemos identificar son:
Los pensamientos errados (Pr. 20:12, 18) (Detecta tu monologo interno).
La pereza (Ecl. 10:18, Pr. 13:4, 15:19) Al perezoso todo le resulta difícil y los obstáculos insuperables. ¡Coloca metas!
La presión de la mayoría, la opinión de terceros.
El temor al fracaso (Pr. 29:25) o miedo al cambio.
Debemos pasar de esa zona de confort a una zona de aprendizaje y desafío. La vida cristiana es una constante hacia adelante, implica CRECIMIENTO, CAMBIO, CREATIVIDAD, CONSTANCIA. Y COMENZAR ALGO NUEVO.
El Apóstol PABLO es uno de los ejemplos que nos inspiran, en Filipenses 3: 8-13 expresa “No pretendo ya haberlo alcanzado” Este sí, es un descontento legítimo, todas deberíamos sentirnos inconformes con nuestro crecimiento espiritual.
Si alguna vez experimentaste remar contra la corriente habrás comprobado que dejar de remar, no implica detenerse, sino retroceder. En la vida cristiana si no avanzamos, retrocedemos. Debemos ser inconformes en el buen sentido de la palabra. Pablo nos desafía con su ejemplo, él afirma “Prosigo a la Meta” el término se puede traducir, “sigo siguiendo”, en un presente continuo.
Deja atrás el pasado. “Olvidando lo que queda atrás” Olvidar el pasado y no dormirse en los laureles de logros conquistados, ni estancarse o paralizarse por fracasos pasados.
Determina avanzar. Crecer. “Extendiéndome hacia lo que está delante…” Estirándose a las cosas que tiene por delante. La palabra que usa para “extenderse”, es muy gráfica y se usa de un corredor que se estira hacia la meta. 1 Corintios 15:58 dice: “Firmes y constantes creciendo…” Nuestro crecimiento no solo debe ser espiritual, mejora tu comunión, crece en el conocimiento de Dios, lee libros. Pero además, nuestro crecimiento debe ser integral. Aprende nuevas habilidades. Desarrolla la creatividad. Toma cursos, la superación debe caracterizar a una mujer de influencia. Que todo nuestro ser glorifique al Señor, espíritu, alma y cuerpo. Que las excusas, como: “yo soy así”, “ya fue”, “no puedo hacer nada al respecto”, no nos engañen. Recuerda que, quizás, sí puedas mejorar tu estado físico. Para avanzar debo reconocer y confesar mi conformismo. Renovar mis pensamientos con la verdad de Dios. En mi escritorio tengo un reloj de arena en el que escribí Salmo 90: 12 y esa oración hecha por Moisés me desafía a orar de igual manera: “Enséñanos de tal manera a contar nuestros días que traigamos al corazón sabiduría”.
Somos exhortadas en Efesios 5:15 a “Andar como sabios… aprovechando bien el tiempo”, aquí la palabra griega para “tiempo” es Kairos y se refiere a “oportunidades”. ¿Por qué debes aprovechar las oportunidades? Porque los días son malos. ¡Sin duda estamos viviendo días que nunca imaginamos! ¡Qué seamos sabias en aprovechar las oportunidades que Dios nos da para dar esperanza y luz en medio de tanta incertidumbre y oscuridad! Hoy puedes animar a alguien con palabras oportunas.
Hace unos años escuche un consejo muy práctico del Dr Lemahans Strauss. Él dijo, cuando pases un tiempo de dificultad recuerda las 3 A. La A de la Aceptación, la A de la Adaptación y la A de la Actitud. Te puedo asegurar que ese consejo me acompañó y desafió en muchas situaciones inesperadas. Le agregaría para esta ocasión, la A de Aprendizaje y la A de Acción. ¿Estas lista para aprender y actuar? Pienso en Rut quien nos da el ejemplo de una mujer que dejó su zona de confort y avanzó con resolución y fe y su trascendencia fue incalculable.
Que el sustantivo “Conformismo” no se transforme en tu vida en un adjetivo que te califique como una mujer conformista, sino una mujer comprometida y dispuesta a seguir avanzando.
Por Sandra Oubel
Genial
Los aviones desde el 911 so hot
n April 9, 2017, three security officers from the Chicago Department of Aviation forcibly removed David Dao from an overbooked United Airlines flight. Dao, a 69-year-old doctor, was dragged down the plane’s aisle after he refused to give up his seat. In the process, his head hit an armrest and he was knocked unconscious.
The passengers clearly recognized what was occurring: Many took out their phones and filmed the scene and later expressed their outrage loudly on social media. Yet at the time, only one woman said anything, yelling out, “What are you doing?” No one confronted the officers or intervened to prevent what was clearly inappropriate behavior.
At some level, this is hardly surprising. Numerous studies have shown that we are less likely to intervene when other people are present. We assume that others will do something, and we don’t have to. Psychologists call this phenomenon the bystander effect.
However, this is not a hard-and-fast rule; sometimes people in groups are able to break out of the bystander role. But who are these people, and what makes them different from the rest of us?
Psychologists call those who display moral courage and choose to do something rather than watch in silence moral rebels. These people stand up against the status quo when they feel inaction will compromise their values, even in the face of potentially negative social consequences. The traits that these people have in common range from their individual skill sets to their personalities — and might even be reflected at a neurological level.
SPECIALIZED SKILLS
If you act, will it matter? Asking this question might be the difference between standing up or standing by. It also helps explain why people with specialized training are more likely to spring into action in an emergency. Doctors, nurses, soldiers or volunteer firefighters may feel more responsible to act in some scenarios — and research shows they usually do.
In one study, researchers recruited students from both a nursing program and a general education program to take what they were told was a simple questionnaire. Half of the students were placed in a room alone to work on their questionnaire; the others were in a room with another student (who was actually the researchers’ accomplice). As they were working, they heard a man fall from a ladder outside the room and scream out in pain.
Education students who were alone were much more likely to help than those who were with another person. But the percentage of nursing students who helped was the same whether they were alone or not. This doesn’t mean that nursing students are nicer people — it reflects the fact that they knew what to do, and therefore felt a greater responsibility to act.
Research has also shown that people feel more responsibility if they are in a position of authority. In some instances, the person with the specialized knowledge isn’t the person with authority. Even so, they may take charge.
During my senior year of college, I was sitting in a classroom on the fourth floor of a building when the room suddenly started swaying back and forth. The 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake had just struck Northern California. The students all turned to the authority — the professor — to figure out what to do.
Her response was not what we had expected: She grabbed the edge of the table and yelled, “I’m from New York!” Her statement clearly indicated that she had no idea what to do.
Another student then yelled, “I’m from California,” establishing his credibility in this emergency. Then he said, “Get under the table.”
CONFIDENCE IS KEY
Besides wielding expertise in certain situations, moral rebels tend to have high self-esteem and feel confident about their own judgment, values and ability. But moral rebels don’t just feel confident that they are right — they believe their actions will make a difference.
To better understand the specific personality traits that underpin moral courage, Tammy Sonnentag at Xavier University and Mark Barnett at Kansas State University studied the characteristics of over 200 seventh and eighth graders. They first asked the students to rate their own willingness to stand up to others and say or do the right thing in the face of social pressure to stay silent and go along with the crowd.
Next, they asked all students in each grade, and one teacher, to rate the tendency of each student to adhere to his or her moral beliefs and values in the face of pressures not to do so. That way, researchers could assess whether students who self-identified as moral rebels actually did behave in ways that were visible to others and weren’t just imagining themselves to be courageous.
The researchers found a high level of agreement between students themselves, their peers and their teacher as to who was a moral rebel. Those who fit the bill also tended to possess particular personality traits: They generally felt good about themselves, rating themselves highly on statements such as, “I feel I have a number of good qualities” and “I can do things as well as most other people.” They were also confident about their ability to accomplish their goals and to stand up to social pressure, agreeing with statements like, “I will be able to successfully overcome many challenges” and “I follow my own ideas even when pressured by a group to change them.”
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But these students didn’t just feel confident and good about themselves. They also believed that their own views were superior to those of others, and thus that they had a social responsibility to share those beliefs. They agreed with statements like, “I feel a social obligation to voice my opinion” and “If everyone saw things the way that I do, the world would be a better place.” This belief in the correctness of their views helped them speak up when other students tended to stay quiet.
And, perhaps most important, these students were reportedly less concerned about fitting in with the crowd. That means when they have to choose between fitting in and doing the right thing, they will probably choose to do what’s right.
One drawback with studies such as this one is that they rely on self-reporting about intentions. What we really want to know is whether certain personality variables actually predict helping behavior in the real world. After all, many of us, maybe even most of us, imagine that we’d step up in an emergency, but we often don’t live up to our good intentions.
LIVES AT STAKE
To get around this problem, researchers at Columbia University looked at the personality traits of a select group of people who helped others in a real-world emergency: the Holocaust. Although acting in this situation clearly required physical courage, it also required moral courage to take action when most others did nothing.
The researchers compared personality traits among three different groups of adults: those who had rescued at least one Jewish person during the Holocaust, those who had provided no help and those who left Europe before the start of World War II.
There is evidence that people who engage in extraordinary acts of altruism show distinct patterns of neurological responses to two types of painful experiences: experiencing pain themselves and watching someone else experience pain.
People who risked their own lives to help Jews differed in several ways from those who did not. They scored higher on independence and perceived control, indicating that they were willing to stick with their own beliefs even if others disagreed and that they felt their life outcomes were due to their own efforts and choices. They also scored higher on risk-taking and were comfortable with tasks that involved danger. This combination of attributes appears to have given them the confidence to show courage. But they had other important traits that have to do with concern about others: altruism, empathy and social responsibility. These traits would have driven them to feel compassion and a need to act, even at great personal risk.
The Holocaust, of course, was a far cry from the more mundane situations in which most of us find ourselves pondering whether to act. To investigate this kind of everyday situation, researchers at Hannover Medical School in Germany asked a local hospital for the names of people who had administered first aid to car accident victims. They contacted these people and asked them to complete personality questionnaires. Thirty-four people agreed to do so. The researchers also asked people who had seen the accident but had not provided help to complete the same questionnaire.
Those who had provided help scored higher on perceived control, empathy and social responsibility — exactly the same characteristics as those who had rescued Jews in Nazi Germany. All of these studies together paint a picture of a moral rebel: someone who is confident, independent and altruistic, with high self-esteem and a strong sense of social responsibility.
BIGGER, BETTER BRAINS?
Moral rebels certainly have a tendency toward certain traits, but are their brains anatomically different from the rest of the population?
In 2014, a Georgetown University study examined differences in patterns of brain activity in 19 people who had engaged in a quite extraordinary act of generosity: donating a kidney to a total stranger. The donors’ amygdala — a part of the brain that processes emotions — was found to be 8 percent larger than it is in most people, and it also showed greater activity.
But we need to be cautious about interpreting this finding. It’s possible that these kidney donors were born with larger and more active amygdala, which caused them to care more about other people. It’s also possible, though, that engaging in this type of extreme altruism could actively rewire the brain. Regardless of the causal connection, it does appear that extraordinary altruists show distinct patterns of neural activity that are associated with a greater responsiveness to emotion. People who demonstrate this type of selfless giving may experience the costs of helping differently from the rest of us. Not helping may actually make them feel worse.
There is also evidence that people who engage in extraordinary acts of altruism show distinct patterns of neurological responses to two types of painful experiences: experiencing pain themselves and watching someone else experience pain.
In one study, researchers measured empathy in nearly 60 people, half of whom had donated a kidney to a stranger and half of whom had not. Each participant was then paired with a stranger to complete a series of trials. In one set of trials, participants watched their partner receive painful pressure to the right thumbnail while researchers recorded their brain activity using fMRI imaging. In another set, the participants themselves received the thumbnail pressure, again while their brain activity was assessed. Researchers then compared the two sets of brain activity.
For most of us, experiencing pain ourselves feels far worse than watching a stranger experience pain. But the brains of those who had demonstrated extraordinary altruism responded in almost the same way to their own pain as to that of others, suggesting that they were experiencing someone else’s pain as though it were their own. For people who feel others’ pain so deeply, the choice to donate a kidney to a stranger may therefore make sense: If they feel pain themselves from knowing that someone else is in pain, helping that person would make them feel better.
Donating a kidney to a stranger may be an extreme example. Few people will think less of you for not choosing to do so, and it does have physical risks. But the discoveries of these studies have much broader implications, since the ability to feel empathy is an important characteristic of those who are willing to face social consequences for doing the right thing.
Catherine A. Sanderson is the Manwell Family Professor in Life Sciences at Amherst College, where she has been researching social norms for the past 20 years. She is also the author of THE POSITIVE SHIFT: MASTERING MINDSET TO IMPROVE HAPPINESS, HEALTH, AND LONGEVITY.
Adapted excerpt from WHY WE ACT: TURNING BYSTANDERS INTO MORAL REBELS by Catherine A. Sanderson, published by Harvard University Press. Copyright © 2020 by Catherine A. Sanderson. Used by permission. All rights reserved.
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With the world facing so much uncertainty, it’s natural to feel anxious and a bit overwhelmed. Getting a handle on stress is important to staying physically and mentally well, so harness your inner artist and try this fun de-stressing technique: art therapy. A recent study in the European Journal of Oncology Nursing found that caregivers who took part in a free-flowing coloring session or a guided art therapy workshop reported feeling less stressed and anxious and more confident. “When you’re making art, it helps you proactively deal with challenges and problems; you engage in a form of problem-solving and feel a sense of confidence that you can tackle challenges in creative and effective ways,” says study author Girija Kaimal, Ph.D., an associate professor at Drexel University and president-elect of the American Art Therapy Association. “This is also a way to express things you might not have words for and to process difficult emotions and experiences.” Try it for yourself: Pick up an adult coloring book and some colored pencils—or just a piece of paper and a pen—and scribble and shade your way to zen.
Cancer Breakthrough
Scientists have discovered a new use for an old drug, and it may make cancer treatments more successful. In research on mice, researchers from the U.K. found that the drug (originally developed to address organ tissue scarring) made malignant tumors less resistant to immunotherapy drugs. Immunotherapy often fails because it can’t penetrate tumors to reach and destroy the cancerous cells inside, so these findings (published in the journal Cancer Research) are encouraging: The discovery could help make existing cancer treatments more effective. The research team is now in the process of testing to see whether this drug works the same way in humans, which could lead to improved breast cancer immunotherapy outcomes in the future.
97.3
THIS PERCENTAGE OF ADULTS WITH HEARING LOSS SHOWED IMPROVED COGNITIVE FUNCTION AFTER 18 MONTHS OF HEARING AID USE,
according to a small study in the Journal of Clinical Medicine.
(JAMIE GRILL/SUPERSTOCK.)
To Slim Down, Stick to the Basics
If you’re looking to shed a few pounds, don’t be tempted by herbal weight-loss supplements you see online or at the drugstore—science doesn’t support their claims. Australian researchers analyzed 54 studies involving 4,000 people and found that herbal medicines (commonly containing things like green tea, white kidney bean, and garcinia cambogia) did not help people lose weight. Also, these types of supplements aren’t regulated by the government, so you can’t be sure of what you’re ingesting when you take them. The best way to lose weight healthfully: Eat a balanced diet, and also exercise and get a good amount of rest each night.
Everyone Hand Sanitizer
Practicing good hygiene like proper handwashing is always a smart move, but hand sanitizer is having a particularly big moment. For a spritz that will clean and smell great without drying out your hands, we love Everyone Hand Sanitizer Spray. It is Environmental Working Group Verified, meaning it’s free of potentially harmful chemicals, and contains 62% ethanol, meeting the CDC’s criteria for effectively killing germs and bacteria. And it’s scented with essential oils like grapefruit, coconut, lemon, lavender, and peppermint. Find it online at eoproducts.com and amazon.com, or at national retailers like Target, Walgreens, and Walmart.
(RIGHT: LEVI BROWN/TRUNK ARCHIVE.)
Eat for a Long Life
Following the Mediterranean diet for just one year was associated with beneficial changes to the gut microbiome that promotes healthy aging, according to a study in the journal Gut. Specifically, this diet—which features lots of fruits and vegetables, lean protein, whole grains, nuts and seeds, and healthy fats in the form of extra virgin olive oil and avocado—appeared to help preserve the good bug–bad bug balance that can change with age. It was also associated with increased levels of good bacteria linked to better cognitive function and reduced overall frailty. Researchers say the effects are likely due to high levels of certain nutrients the diet provides: fiber as well as important vitamins and minerals such as potassium, iron, and magnesium.
Sneaky Sleep Disrupter
Can’t nod off? What you’ve been eating may be to blame. Columbia University Irving Medical Center researchers analyzed food diaries from more than 50,000 postmenopausal women and found that those who consumed lots of refined carbs (particularly added sugars) were more likely to develop insomnia, but those who ate more fiber-filled produce were less likely to suffer from the sleep disorder. Why? Refined carbohydrates like sugar and white flour or rice can spike blood sugar, prompting the release of insulin to lower it, but once blood sugar levels dip, stress hormones like adrenaline and cortisol flow, which may mess with your sleep.
Another Reason to Limit Sugar
Drinking 12 oz of sugary drinks more than once a day is linked to two heart disease risk factors, lower levels of good HDL cholesterol and higher levels of triglycerides, says a study in the Journal of the American Heart Association. Much of sugar’s role in the heart disease puzzle has centered on weight gain, but this sheds light on how it may affect the balance of cholesterol and fats in the blood.
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Not So Sweet on Sugar
Since our very first issue, we’ve taken a skeptical stance on that most craveable substance, sugar. Prevention even devoted an entire issue to the stuff in December 1953—but we weren’t exactly fans: “The story of sugar seems to be one of the finest examples of man’s inability to let well enough alone. As one doctor of our acquaintance prophesies, [it] may very well end our civilization within a few generations.” Though our tone has changed a bit, we still think sugar is a troublemaker and join our colleagues from the past in encouraging you to avoid it. ■