Implementing a Reading List in Org Mode

2025-09-29T00:20:15Z

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I joined Goodreads in 2012, at roughly the same time I joined Twitter, in what might be called a more innocent age of social networking. The idea of a social network for book readers appealed to me at the time.

Fast forward to 2025, and the world looks different. Twitter/X has turned into a hellscape run by a super villain, and Goodreads, though not quite a hellscape, is slow, dated and run by a company with dubious ethics.

I ended up deactivating my Twitter account - not that difficult given that I never really gained a following. As it turns out, my use of Goodreads as a social network never really took off either - I don't think my friend list ever exceeded 20 people. I used it much more as a log of my reading habits, a record of every book I ever read or wanted to read. That made it easier to think about finding a replacement.

Alternatives to Goodreads

There are several viable alternatives to Goodreads particularly if, like me, you aren't that invested in the social aspect of maintaining a reading list. In 2025, the contenders seem to include, but are not necessarily limited to:

BookWyrm, in particular, is interesting as it's part of the Fediverse and uses the ActivityPub protocol. It's therefore truly decentralized service, like Mastodon.

Here's the thing, though. Ever since I began participating in the IndieWeb back in 2019, I've been been trying to live up to its principles - in particular the part about owning your data. And while all these services may have the best of intentions, there's no predicting the future. Any one of them might go out of business, or might simply evolve to the point where you want to leave - like Twitter did.

So what can you do?

Settling on Emacs and Org Mode

If you read my blog, you might know that I'm a fan of keeping my data in plain text. You might also know that I'm an Emacs enthusiast who cobbled together a vaguely GTD like system using Org Mode. Given that a reading list is, fundamentally, nothing more than a specialized TODO list, it makes sense to try and do something similar here.

Please note that, as usual, this will not be an Emacs or Org Mode tutorial. If you want to learn more about these tools, please consult the fine documentation.

So how do we go about doing this? Plain vanilla Org mode itself gets us about 80% of the way there. Here's a small example file:

#+TODO: TOREAD READING | READ DNF

* READ The Neverending Story  :fantasy:youngadult:translation:
CLOSED: [2025-03-06]
:PROPERTIES:
:Author:   Michael Ende, Ralph Manheim
:Added:    [2015-07-24]
:Rating:   :star::star::star:
:END:

* TOREAD The Language Instinct: How the Mind Creates Language     :linguistics:
:PROPERTIES:
:Author:   Steven Pinker
:Added:    [2025-01-12]
:END:

There's nothing fancy here. The first line defines the TODO states that apply to this file. Since this file is a reading list, we have two actionable states: TOREAD, READING and two terminal or DONE states: READ and DNF (for Did Not Finish). Org mode automatically puts in a CLOSED line (as seen above) when the state of a headline moves from an actionable one to a terminal one. You can use this to record when you finished (or did not finish) a book.

Each title is entered as a headline with a TODO state. Extra information like Author and Added date is recorded via org mode's properties feature. I've also leveraged org mode's built in tagging system to define a basic taxonomy for the reading list.

To display your books using org-agenda, you can add this section in your org-agenda-custom-commands block:

("r" "All Books"
 ((todo "READING")
 (todo "TOREAD")
 (todo "READ")
 (todo "DNF"))
 ((org-agenda-files (file-expand-wildcards "~/org-roam-garden/books.org"))
 (org-overriding-columns-format "%TODO %50ITEM(TITLE) %30AUTHOR %30RATING")))

Now you can type "r" when calling up an org agenda and you'll get a basic, compact reading list. Even better, you can leverage org mode's agenda column view by typing C-c C-x C-c to get a nice tabular format.

Leveraging org-books

You can type out the books in your reading list manually, but since this is Emacs, it would be weird if there weren't a way to automate the process.

Help exists in the form of a Emacs package called org-books which advertises itself simply as "Reading list management using org-mode". Mostly, that means it provides a collection of elisp functions to quickly add a book to your reading list via a URL (org-books-add-url) or ISBN (org-books-add-isbn).

The org-books-add-url function, in particular, claims to support Amazon, Goodreads and Open Library as sources. What this means is that you can interactively call org-books-add-url and paste in, for example, an Amazon book URL when prompted. Press enter and voila - a new entry will be added to your book file. It looks like this:

* TOREAD Piranesi                                                       :fantasy:
:PROPERTIES:
:AUTHOR:   Susanna Clarke 
:ADDED:    [2015-07-31]
:AMAZON:   https://www.amazon.ca/Piranesi-Susanna-Clarke/dp/1635577802
:END:

Formatting with an Eye Towards Export

To be honest, I found org-books a bit rough around the edges. While Amazon and Goodreads URLs seemed to work, Open Library URLs would only work with the book's JSON API endpoint, not the actual web page, which I found annoying.

In addition, I wasn't totally happy with the way the package formatted the book entries. Informing my opinion was my desire to be able to easily export my reading to HTML, for publication on my garden.

Org mode isn't primarily a CMS and while it does support HTML export out of the box, it doesn't really come with what I would describe as an easy to use templating system. What this means in practice is that, without some fairly major configuration, org-mode HTML export will result in HTML that more or less mirrors the original content in terms of structure and semantics.

What I'm trying to say is that if you want your exported HTML to be structured a certain way, it's often easiest to arrange for your org-mode source to be structured in a similar way.

Related to this is the fact that org-books, seemingly as a matter of policy, formats all of its book entries exclusively as "headlines + properties", presumably reserving the content area for extra comments about work itself.

This can be a problem when it comes time to export the entry to HTML, because properties are treated as special in org-mode's export system - they are rendered as plain text by default, not HTML. So that URL in the AMAZON property you see above? Because it's a property, it's rendered in HTML as a plain, unclickable URL. After some amount of research, I came to the conclusion that the easiest way to get an actual link in the output was to embed the Amazon URL as a real org-mode link, in the content of the entry, not the properties - since proper org-mode links do get turned into HTML links during export, as you might expect.

I also thought it would be nice to have display cover image for each book entry, particularly in the exported HTML, and Open Library does have a public covers API that I suspected I could leverage. Org-books, so far as I could tell, doesn't insert any cover images at all. In any case, the right place for it, assuming we wanted it to appear in the exported HTML, would be as an image in the content, not as a property.

All this to say, org-books wasn't totally cutting it. So what to do?

Hacking org-books

In the end I decided to fork org-books and make some changes:

I capitalized the data properties, but I didn't make them all uppercase like they were originally. The property names appear in the HTML as is so I wanted something less "in-your-face".
I embedded the source URLs as proper links in the entry's content, rather than as properties.
When adding a book via Open Library, I also inserted a link in the entry's content to the cover via their covers API.
I added a function, org-books-add-olb, that accepts an Open Library web page URL as a data source, in a similar manner to Amazon or Goodreads.

I made sure that the entries were formatted in a way that made it easier to later produce the layout I wanted via CSS. In the end, a typical entry looked like this:

* READ Redshirts                   :scifi:
CLOSED: [2025-01-28]
:PROPERTIES:
:Author:   John Scalzi
:Added:    [2015-07-31]
:ISBN:     9780765316998
:Rating:   :star::star::star::star:
:END:

#+BEGIN_aside
#+ATTR_HTML: :loading lazy
[[https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/ISBN/9780765316998-M.jpg]]

[[https://openlibrary.org/books/OL25253043M/Redshirts][Open Library]] \\
[[https://openlibrary.org/api/books?bibkeys=ISBN:9780765316998&jscmd=data&format=json][Open Library Data]]
#+END_aside

I expected this book to be funny, and it was.  What I was *not* expecting
was that this book would make me emotional.  I nearly cried.

The content has a preamble that I wrapped in a #+BEGIN_aside/#+END_aside pair; when exported to HTML, this results in the enclosed content being wrapped in an aside tag that can be easily styled by CSS.

The formatting of the cover image is worth noting. It looks like this:

#+ATTR_HTML: :loading lazy
[[https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/ISBN/9780765316998-M.jpg]]

This results in a loading="lazy" attribute added to the cover img tag in the exported HTML:

<img src="https://covers.openlibrary.org/b/ISBN/9780765316998-M.jpg" alt="9780765316998-M.jpg" loading="lazy">

The effect is to only load the image when it's scrolled into view. Given that I have hundreds of books in my reading list, the exported page loads much faster as a result.

Example and Final Thoughts

I publish my reading list to my garden. You can peruse it there.

Is this thing a Goodreads killer? Will it replace a real book tracking app for the average person? Good God, no. I'm the first to admit the whole process is clunky as hell.

But apps comes with trade offs, as any IndeWeb enthusiast is aware, and one of the things you give up when you use one is full control over your data. The one big advantage of all this trouble is that my reading list is mine and mine alone. I consider that important.

Important enough to always resist the siren son of a dedicated service for years to come? Maybe not - that's why the IndeWeb has a prescribed way for sharing your data with the rest of the world: POSSE. This is the practice of publishing to your own site first and then deciding how you tell the world about it. It's something I do on my blog - all posts are automatically shared to Mastodon once published.

To be honest I'm not sure how POSSE would look in this case; I'm not even sure what service I'd share to, or how I'd figure out what to share. Still, it's an interesting idea worth exploring.

In the meantime, this serves my needs, and it was fun to do.

2025-06-08T20:26:56Z

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2025-04-24T19:48:08Z

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"The Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power"

2025-04-24T17:27:34Z

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There is something to be said about the connection between ChatGPT, John Searle's Chinese Room thought experiment and Dan Dennett's response to it, but I'm not totally clear what that would be. I'm leaning towards Dan Dennet being wrong, though.

2025-04-08T12:39:19Z

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It's that time of the year in Montreal, when you have to alternate between wearing your winter coat and spring jacket several times in the same week.

2025-04-03T15:09:15Z

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If I have learned anything from the Trump tariffs imposed yesterday it's that we've obviously all been underestimating penguins. Sneaky little devils.

2025-04-02T13:38:13Z

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I saw my first cyber truck the other night, "in the flesh" so to speak, and I was unprepared for the level of revulsion I would feel.

2025-03-13T17:21:59Z

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I have downloaded an app called "Buy Beaver" and I can't believe it's come to this

It's Not Nostalgia, Exactly

2025-01-31T02:36:57Z

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I have spent most of my life in Montreal but there was a decent sized chunk in the middle, spanning high school and university, when I lived in Toronto.

I still visit Toronto not infrequently. I have a soft spot for it; at the very least, I don't harbour quite the same level visceral hatred a lot of people seem to lob at the city.

But I haven't lived there for over 20 years. Obviously, a lot has changed in that time. I'm not sure I could live there now. I mean, I guess I could but my life would look very different. The place is so huge, and the housing so expensive, that I'm not sure it would be a good trade.

Going back, even just to visit, feels strange. I don't think it's nostalgia, exactly. My old haunts, such as they were, are long gone, so it never feels like I'm going home. I liked my time there well enough, and I have a tendency to jump to its defence when people start getting snarky about it, but I'm not like Woody Allen in Manhattan, "romanticizing it all out of proportion."

Actually, I think I know what it is. It's not nostalgia, a longing for a past that may or may not have existed. It's more like irrational indignation that the city had the audacity to move on without me.

I mean, how narcissistic can you get, right? To believe, in your heart of hearts, that a city should stop moving when you're not there? I never realized I had such a big ego.

Maybe the right thing to do is just acknowledge that the Toronto where I spent a good portion of my formative years just doesn't exist anymore. You can never go home again, as they say. Maybe I should just lean into the tourist thing when I visit. There is, after all, a lot to see and do.

And maybe it would help to finally internalize the notion, so abstractly obvious but still sometimes a tough pill to swallow, that the city in which you once lived doesn't know you exist. It's a freeing idea, all things considered.

I Never Considered Myself Naive

2025-01-20T00:35:39Z

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I never thought that the law applied equally to rich people and poor people. I never considered myself that naive. I had always understood that rich people could break the law in ways that poor people simply couldn't.

But I had always assumed that the way this worked in practice was that being rich just came with a heightened ability to cover your tracks. I had always assumed that, rich or poor, it was of supreme importance not to get caught, and that being rich simply bought you more options in that regard. Maybe you could bribe a police officer, or a judge, and make the charges go away. Maybe you could afford to hire someone to do the dirty work for you, or take the fall for you if it came to that.

But, and here's where I was a profoundly naive, I had always assumed that if, for whatever reason, you were caught, and it was blindingly clear, from a legal standpoint, that you did the thing of which you were accused, then, rich or poor, you'd be charged and convicted. Like...I had always assumed, for example, that if you committed a murder and it was caught on camera then, rich or poor, it was game over for you.

What's that expression about assuming things?

What the past few years have taught me, of course, is that this is bullshit. Once you reach a certain level of wealth, you don't even have to cover your tracks. You can brazenly commit your crimes in broad daylight, and you just have to convince the right people not to care. To ignore the evidence of their eyes and ears. And, of course, it doesn't hurt that the highest court in the land says that the law just...doesn't apply to you.

I'm not trying to sound dramatic, but the last few years have broken whatever paltry sense of justice I used to have. Laws only matter if people are willing to enforce them, and I don't believe there's anyone left in power to do so.

2024-12-17T00:47:00Z

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Annual Christmas tree snap

2024-12-14T21:01:18Z

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This is the year for tech upgrades, I guess. New tiny computer, new customizable keyboard and new smaller external storage.

4 photos

Anatomy of a Post

2024-12-07T17:07:47Z

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My blog is based around Eleventy, which means I write my entries in plain text, using Markdown and YAML front matter, a combo which I'm sure is familiar to most users of static site generators.

I also participate in the IndieWeb, which means I post many different kinds of content other than your standard blog posts - notes, likes, photos, etc.

I find it useful to divide my content in two main types: original content, where the focus is on my own published material, and derivative content, which only makes sense in the context of another, external URL.

The main original content posts are:

Articles
Notes
Photos
Multi-Photo

I would include albums and album collections here as well, but we'll deal with those in a bit.

I've written a bit before about how I format my posts, but for the sake of reference, an article looks like this:

---
date: 2022-03-01T13:57:07-05:00
title: 'Much Ado About (Indieweb) Bookmarks'
blurb: 'The ins and outs of owning your bookmarks on the #indieweb'
tags:
- indieweb
mp-syndicate-to:
- twitter
---

Like many Indieweb participants, I post...

And a note looks like:

---
date: 2022-02-24T01:27:35Z
---

I am grateful that Wordle exists if for no other reason...

Here's a photo post with multiple photos in it - a multi-photo, in other words:

---
date: '2023-01-15T21:09:31-05:00'
mp-syndicate-to:
- twitter
photo:
- alt: Book nook contents
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/84/b3/2d/b8/e8de337b847a14ebac309f113fe28f1a572692c05795ca41caf435b0.jpg
- alt: Book nook started, partially built
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/04/5e/62/95/632d1dff8038533ba4114c0dadce31784f1a2746323e7c1b7af84c86.jpg
- alt: Miniature bookcase
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/2b/2a/50/dc/d18b6e980e029b94757a3e9ff500594d7ab218da940ab4f7885c5743.jpg
- alt: Book nook halfway finished
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/fb/c4/7c/3e/ff27aafb08dcbb24c3d08dd82ee879acbb642a968acd85f853bbb96f.jpg
- alt: Miniature book
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/70/a8/d8/80/25e8a621770fbe49354001c0a70e614afc9a21ecd75bb4b87e0f9c73.jpg
- alt: Miniature book with pages
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/26/69/87/7f/ca703fd7f6d2a8c5fa60bf69d5d0dd82b657e97a6e1141d2018c01a4.jpg
- alt: Miniature wall bookcase with many books 
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/e5/54/84/1a/9f396871304906351237e67c2cd5dd20b4e543a0398729cdd0a33ef8.jpg
- alt: Completed book nook on shelf with books
  value: https://media.desmondrivet.com/0c/7c/3f/a7/681cbb1930b6b6367f35ebeceeb61e16a1c620bfd73c62af76d75f67.jpg
---

I got a "book nook" for Christmas - kind of like a book end, but more elaborate.  Super fun, I want them all.

So how do I render these posts? One very simple and direct way is create a separate template for each type, but would result in a significant amount of repetition. A photo post and multi-photo post are virtually the same, for example, and both of them share a lot in common with a note, in that they're basically just notes with photos added. An article could be consider a longer note with a title added.

Deciding how to render them all on my blog in a relatively DRY way i.e. a way that doesn't require me to sprinkle the same snippets of HTML among a batch of templates of varying degrees of similarity is actually, in my opinion, a non-trivial problem, which is worth recording here for posterity. Most of what I write will be very specific to my workflow, but it's not entirely inconceivable that someone might gain some inspiration for their own blog

In any case, my main strategy for dealing with these posts is to treat them all as variations on the same theme and hence to create a single generic post template which captures them all. To start with, it includes:

an optional title (mandatory for articles)
optional content (mandatory for notes and articles but photos may not have any text) and
optional photos

If we're dealing with a multi-photo, then one more piece of content is implied: a line telling you how many photos are in the post, if there's more than 1 (for multi-photos, in other words). A good place to put that would be after the title, but before the content, so you would get something like this:

Title
Photo count (for multi-photos)
Content
Photos

Although these are all optional, there is an implicit understanding that at least some of these pieces have to be present in some combination, otherwise you have no post at all, right? And some parts come as a pair; you would never have a line that said "3 photos" without showing any photos at the end.

Derived Posts

The other form of content I post are "derivative" posts. The main derivative post types are:

Likes
Reposts
Replies
Bookmarks

These are all posts that are "about" another URL, which I call a referenced URL. The posts make no sense without it, so it needs to be included in the somehow. With the exception of a reply, these types are often without content, though there's nothing stopping you from adding some. In addition, these posts should all show an unfurled "link preview" or "reply context" (the IndieWeb wiki distinguishes between these two things, but I don't find the distinction useful, so I don't make one) for the referenced URL.

To give you some context, here's a "like" post:

---
date: '2024-11-09T12:53:58-05:00'
like-of: https://adactio.com/journal/21548
---

Super simple right? Here's a reply post:

---
date: '2023-09-15T06:41:24-04:00'
in-reply-to: https://nerdculture.de/@titaniumbiscuit/111067559683462120
mp-syndicate-to:
- mastodon
---

Yeah I may have judged too quickly with regard to Obsidian. Do you use or recommend it?

The difference in format between the derivative posts is quite superficial. They all have a referenced URL, tagged with their respective identifiers ("like-of" for likes, "in-reply-to" for replies, etc.), and optional content.

The template for these posts would seem correspondingly obvious. They would include an optional referenced URL, and optional content, followed by an unfurled link preview.

Does it make sense to have a separate template for these kinds of posts? My first instinct was yes, since the only overlap with the "original content" template appeared to be the content. Upon further reflection, I realized that notes sometimes have article links in them that would benefit from a link preview as well. And, though it might be unusual for a like or a reply to have a title, there's no particular reason to enforce this as a rule.

The bottom line is that a "derivative" template can pretty much take advantage of the "original content" template and just add the one thing that is unique to these kinds of posts: the referenced URL. A good place to show it is after the title, and before the content. With that, we have a new unified template with:

Title
Referenced URL
Photo count
Content
Photos
Link preview

As before, all of these elements are optional, but at least some of them must be present at any one time, and not all combinations are really valid (I'm having a hard time imagining how a link preview would work with a photo post, for example).

List Context Versus Full Context

Blogs tend to have two main contexts in which posts are rendered: a full post, shown on its own page, located at a permalink, and something which for lack of a better name we shall call a post entry, shown in contexts where it's part of a list, such as on a timeline or a feed.

There are some differences in how full posts are rendered versus post entries:

Articles are shown truncated in a post entry, with a "Read more" link to take you to the full article
A multi-photo post would show thumbnails in the post entry, and the larger photos in the full post.

So, this discussion now implies two templates - one for posts in a list context, aka as post entries, and one for posts in a full context.

A post entry template looks like this:

Title
Referenced link
Photo count
Truncated content (with Read more link)
if multi-photo show thumbnails, otherwise show one large photo
Link preview

For a full post template we have this:

Title
Referenced link
Photo count
Content
Large photos
Link preview

Open Graph Versus Featured Images

Open Graph is a standard created by Meta (Facebook) for annotating URLs with metadata that can used in the unfurling of said URLs in other contexts. One of these bits of metadata is the image associated with the post that is displayed in such contexts.

Wordpress reportedly has a similar concept called the "featured image", which has been copied by the IndieWeb community in the form of a u-featured microformat. A featured image, like Open Graph's image metadata, can be displayed in a link preview context.

The two concepts work differently. The Open Graph image URL is true metadata; it's configured in a meta tag of a post's HTML. As such, you never see the image in the rendered post unless you explicitly put it in there. The IndieWeb featured image concept, on the other hand, is designed to be embedded in the post itself, so that you have something to which you can add the u-featured microformat. You can, of course, turn the image off with a good, old-fashioned "display: none" but those kinds of shenanigans, while sometimes unavoidable, are generally frowned upon.

The featured image is easy to add to an IndieWeb post if you're dealing with one that incorporates such an image organically, such as a photo post, or an article with some images embedded. In such a case, the featured image can also be used as the Open Graph image for maximum unfurling capabilities.

I'll usually pick the first photo as the featured image in a multi-photo post.

On the other hand, if you have an article with no natural image to display, then the situation becomes more complicated. Some people will actually incorporate a featured image into their content and display it in their posts but that feels somewhat forced and artificial to me, so I don't bother to do it. I do certainly add an Open Graph image if I remember to.

Photo Album Format

I also post photo albums. Photo albums are similar to multi-photo posts in that they both house multiple photos, but an album differs from a multi-photo post in the following ways:

Each photo in an album post has its own permalink
An album is more curated and less spontaneous than a photo post. The photos are more processed and I'm more selective with them
An album tends to have more photos than a photo post, so that showing all the thumbnails in a list context isn't always feasible

Under the hood, as far as the post format is concerned, the two are nearly indistinguishable, except for the following:

A multi-photo post tends to have no title, although there's nothing really enforcing that.
More importantly, an album post has an explicit flag, album: true, that concretely identifies the post as an album

---
date: '2024-10-05T20:30:30-04:00'
title: Plaza De Espana
featured:
  alt: ''
  value: >-
    https://media.desmondrivet.com/27/82/0a/cd/c834418f3eb97df08ead1fc9ee4839e43218bef19c42c728aab27fde.jpg
album: true
excludeFromPosts: true
parent: '2024-spain'
photo:
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/3a/41/39/00/6a65b1d3b2cea7a36d7c4b5e97deddbaea74bb3004ce61c46b93cb97.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/66/f0/05/c5/db2ed1d9fb53d937883170044fd37ce4a49e3b8ac6f6d0cddf4b3205.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/a8/49/b6/5e/0e5b9dd0d44f6602045dbc2b29a478c8abfed3b6ec26799f6ce8871f.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/9b/ce/73/e9/f001794447336d239fa507a1a57db357fef181d1dcc79375b8e50980.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/0c/57/30/34/902a01992fb105db4009d923ec25c582dcf13a63bdc8776e736d0ff6.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/0b/6a/12/4b/283a2e598bf020e67474cee6baa83826f2b640472a252d70eb514830.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/f2/c2/49/48/19b7a46adf598e35d82b35ca8572dcb31c81397913422bda35ef3ac3.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/0d/9f/fd/c8/68dc185b232fa7a466a2eb440b3b2d733ae6bb911b7e34349541bcef.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/d0/65/70/97/fac5397a015dc4a1f37b78b716df7c5b0cd75cfadbac0eab619836e5.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/f3/0e/15/77/f312e468e2776b055f04bd795bf0989e8dc0f505a4e44439ec08307d.jpg
  - alt: ''
    value: >-
      https://media.desmondrivet.com/27/82/0a/cd/c834418f3eb97df08ead1fc9ee4839e43218bef19c42c728aab27fde.jpg
---

Plaza de Espana is one of Seville's main postcard shots.  A huge, colourful building, it's hard to get it all in one photo.

Some things to note:

As mentioned, I have an explicit album flag defined.
I've explicitly defined a featured photo here, because the first one won't do. I should probably move the featured flag into the photo list, but I was lazy.
I have a flag called "excludeFromPosts" which will remove this album from direct feeds. I only want the album to appear as the child of my "Spain" album collection (see below), defined by the parent key.

Rendering Photo Albums

I could, in theory, choose to render the photo album in a similar way to a multi-photo post, but I've opted instead to do it a bit differently:

Because a photo album is meant to be more "curated", and may have many photos in it, I want to show just the featured image when it appears in a list context, instead of the thumbnails.
Since each photo has its own URL, when showing the full album post, I want to show just the thumbnails and let the user navigate to the photo URL when they click on it.

This means that my post entry template now looks like this:

Title
Referenced link
Photo count (shown for multi-photos and albums)
Truncated content
If album, featured image. If multi-photo, thumbnails. If one photo, just the photo.
Link preview

For full posts we have:

Title
Referenced link
Photo count (shown for multi-photos or albums)
Content
If album, thumbnails. If not, a stack of full photos.
Link preview

One idiosyncrasy of an album post, when compared with a multi-photo post, is that while we have conceptually defined a featured photo for the album, we won't show it in the rendered post. The reason is that all we're showing on the post is thumbnails, and none of these are suitable for a featured image. This is one major downside to using microformats to define a featured image - you need to have the actual image in the post so that the microformat has something to grab on to.

You can of course continue set the Open Graph image metadata to whatever you want, and we do, in fact, set it here to the featured image so that the permalink will unfurl correctly in most situations.

Album Collections with Explicit Featured Images

A photo album collection, as you might guess, is a collection of photo albums, i.e. a post that houses other photo albums. It can also house other album collections. Such a post houses no photos directly, but it is still is photo oriented, so it makes sense, in my opinion, to explicitly define a conceptual featured image here, even if it's not "organically" part of the post.

Format-wise, an album collection looks a lot like a really, really short blog entry - it has a title, and a line or two of content, describing the collection. But there are some things which set it apart:

The metadata will have an eleventyNavigation key, which child photo albums point to as their "parent". In theory this feature doesn't have to be restricted to photo albums, but that's all I'm using it for at the moment.
Crucially, the metadata will have an album: true flag, which firmly identifies this as an album collection - and notably not an album, since there are also no photos defined in the post directly.

An album collection will have an explicit featured image defined in the top level metadata.

Rendering Album Collections

When rendering an album collection in a list context, it makes sense to me to show its featured image, like a proper photo album. In addition, I want to display the number of albums in the collection. This means I enhance my post entry template so that it looks like this:

Title
Referenced link
Photo count (for multi-photos or albums)
Album count
Truncated content
If one photo, just the photo. If multi-photo, thumbnails. If album or album collection, featured image.
Link preview

The full post for album collections will render, in some fashion, the list of albums for that collection. Our template is therefore augmented to include albums, like this:

Title
Referenced link
Photo count (for multi-photos or albums)
Album count
Content
If album, thumbnails. If not, a stack of full photos.
Children of the album collection, either albums or more album collections. Either way, each child should have a featured image to display.
Link preview

Like a regular photo album post, we don't render a featured photo for full album collection posts, since the photo is not really shown organically in the post. And again, like the photo album post, we will continue to define the Open Graph image from the defined featured photo in the raw source post, so the URL can continue to unfurl correctly.

2024-12-05T16:16:46Z

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First real snow fall of the year. Boot weather is here!

2024-12-05T15:37:39Z

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I can't be the only one who often catches himself saying "When I graduate" when I mean to say "When I retire", right?

Madrid Is the Toronto of Spain, and That's Okay

2024-11-26T00:58:42Z

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Madrid marked the end of our trip to Spain. Our plane home flew out of there and so we decided to spend the evening before exploring what we could of the city. We boarded a train from Seville and arrived at our hotel around 4pm that day.

I would argue Madrid is the Toronto of Spain from the point of view of visiting Canadians because, like Toronto, it's the largest city in the country as well as its economic hub and also the city that everyone loves to hate.

I've said this before but I'll say it again - everyone loves Barcelona. No one loves Madrid. Madrid, by all popular accounts, is mediocre at best.

Side note: if Madrid is the Toronto of Spain, does this mean that Barcelona is the Montreal of Spain? I don't think the comparison is crazy - everyone loves Montreal.

Having visited Madrid, I can now say that, like Toronto, I feel its reputation is somewhat undeserved - at least from the little I saw of it. It appears to be a clean, attractive, organized city, marred only by the confusing public transit system. The buildings seem newer and less distinctive, which I imagine puts some people off, but I thought they looked pretty decent. It's definitely not as dynamic as Barcelona or as colourful as Seville but I honestly found the calm, almost placid vibe rather refreshing after 10 days of hustle and bustle.

Like Barcelona, it feels like there's a real city here, with a life of its own beyond the tourists. I could certainly see myself visiting again.

A Distinct Lack of Barbers

2024-11-26T00:10:38Z

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I'm 47 years old, and most of the people I work with are much younger than I am - often in their 20's and 30's. Cultural references that I think are universal sometimes turn out to be pretty specific to my age group in ways that surprise me.

Take something like Bugs Bunny. Most people, young and old, have of course heard of Bugs Bunny but it turns out that not a lot of young people grew up watching it. I have, and it is because of this cartoon that I happen to vaguely know some of the music to The Barber of Seville.

So when I told some of my workmates that I was visiting Seville, and that I would be visiting all the famous sites as well as a barber, no one got the joke. They took one look at my shaved head and with genuine confusion would proceed to inform me that I have no hair and hence would not need the services of a barber.

Growing old is awful, y'all.

Anyway! After Barcelona, Evelyn and I hopped on a high-speed train and headed to Seville. We had booked 3 nights. It's not a destination you often hear about in connection with a trip to Spain, but I had heard that it was beautiful, and well worth the visit.

I had also heard that it was "underrated" and so I had assumed that it would be less crowded than Barcelona. Was I right? Let's find out!

Arrival

Our apartment was located across from Las Setas, an odd, mushroom shaped structure a short walk from the Old Town. The accommodations were a cross between an Airbnb and a hotel - it was a full apartment with fridge and stove, but we didn't have to share the place with anyone. Nice enough digs, and a damn sight quieter than Barcelona.

In terms of location, we were about a half hour walk from the Plaza de Espana, which I was desperate to see right away. Plaza de Espana is the "postcard" attraction of Seville - it's what shows up when you search for "Seville" in a search engine and choose "images". Try it and you'll see what I mean, and you'll also understand why I wanted to see this thing so bad.

The best way to get to the Plaza de Espana is to go through the Barrio de Santa Cruz, otherwise known as the Old Town, or Jewish Quarter, a gorgeously colourful collection of narrow streets, alleyways and squares. It reminded me a bit of El Born in Barcelona but way less gritty and better maintained - so well maintained, in fact, that Evelyn thought the whole thing looked a bit unreal, like a theme park. I could see where she was coming from and I didn't entirely disagree, but I still found myself enjoying the neighbourhood's twists and turns, even if I was sharing the experience with thousands of other tourists.

So...Seville is definitely not some kinda of underrated "secret". It was definitely crowded, though the tourist demographic may have skewed a little bit older than Barcelona.

Santa Cruz is home to some of the most popular tourist attractions in the city, like the Cathedral and the Royal Alcazar and though these were definitely on my list of things to see - I had already bought tickets for both of them for the following day - at the moment I had my sights set on the Plaza. From the direction we were going, we approached it from behind, turned a corner and...voila.

It's hard to describe what hits your eyes when you turn the corner. It's...immense, certainly, and your breath catches, but that's not quite the whole story. The entire package just sort of catches your eye, from the square in front of the building, to the colourful, tiled mosaics, to the symmetrical twin towers on either end, to the little stream running through it all. It's just...stunning, in a quite literal way - I was speechless for a few seconds when I saw it.

I was surprised to learn that the Plaza de Espana isn't actually very old; it was built in 1929 for the Seville World Fair. It was designed to impress, and accomplishes the goal effortlessly. I was more disappointed to learn that the building now houses mostly government offices but I guess you got to do something with all that space.

Also: not that I was looking very hard, but I did not find a barber this day. I did however, find Rosina's Balcony, by all accounts the inspiration for the opera.

Second Day

The next day was reserved for our two main paid attractions in Seville: the Royal Alcazar and the Seville Cathedral.

First up was the Royal Alcazar, the Spanish royal family's official residence when they stay in Seville. It looks like something out of Morocco. At first I thought it was actually built by Moorish invaders but, alas, the truth is a bit more mundane. Though originally the site of a 10th century Islamic citadel, progressive conquests and reconstructions have led to current palace, a Mudéjar-style estate dating back to the 14th century, near the end of Islamic rule in Spain. It looks like something Scheherazade may have cooked up but it was actually built by European Christians as a Christian residence, though very much in the style of the conquering Moors.

The place is mind-blowing. To some extent, I suppose, it must have been the novelty of the whole thing - I'd never seen anything quite it. When you visit Europe, you're used to seeing a lot of churches and castles and palaces of a certain look and feel, and the Alcazar just doesn't fit that mould.

When the tour was over, we had lunch, walked a bit and then stood in line for the Seville Cathedral. Like the Alcazar, the church has Islamic origins and was originally the site of a large mosque. Nothing remains of the original structure except, notably, the Giralda tower, which totally looks the part.

I usually don't bother with church tours when I visit Europe, but this one came highly recommended, for reasons I didn't fully grasp until I saw it. The Seville Cathedral is the largest Gothic cathedral in the world and although I understand what that means abstractly it's still a big hit to the brain when you go inside and see just what that means in practice.

I could say that it's huge, but what does that even mean? Legend has it that the architects wanted to build a church so big the world thought they were crazy. Mission accomplished - the size is impossible to convey in words, and difficult in photos (I tried, and mostly failed, I think). Let's just say that when you go inside you feel very, very, very small. My first reaction was to wonder how on earth they keep the ceilings clean.

There are, reportedly, over 80 chapels (distinct altars or areas where people can kneel and pray) inside but, again, I'm not exactly sure what I'm supposed to do with that information. How many chapels does a church usually have? I have no idea.

What I do know is that the main chapel is called, unsurprisingly, the Main Chapel, and that it houses one of the most breathtaking works of art I've ever seen in my life: the Ritablo Mayor, or Main Altarpiece, an unassuming name for something so incredibly extra.

The Ritablo Mayor stands roughly 60 feet tall and consists of matrix or grid of Bible scenes, all carved out of wood and gilded to the hilt. In a time when most people couldn't read, this was meant to familiarize them with selected Bible stories, the way a comic book might today.

Oh! And the Cathedral is also the final resting place of one Christopher Columbus. An asshole, to be sure, but the history is deep here.

Side note: on this second day, I still did not find a barber. Is there just one barber in Seville, the one the opera's about? It feels like it. Anyway I didn't find him.

Third Day

The third day in Seville was mostly just exploration and if you're going to do that, one neighbourhood stands out: Triana. At least, that's what the Internet and guidebooks say, which means that it's still just as touristy as the rest of town.

I'm being a bit unfair. Triana definitely had a lot of tourists but it also had a lot of stretches that just seemed...uninteresting. Therein lies rub when it comes to the dichotomy between "authentic" and "touristy". Generally speaking, touristy places are like that for a reason - and, by contrast, the non-touristy, authentic spots are also like that for a reason.

When we first crossed the bridge to Trina, for example, after a bit of wandering, we settled on a bar that felt pretty local. It wasn't a bad spot, and the food was okay, but...it was definitely not catering to us. I think people sometimes don't realize that "real" Spaniards drink local beer and eat fries and pizza like the rest of us. I honestly think the place could have become better over upon multiple visits but we never got the chance.

It turns out that we actually crossed the wrong bridge. We meant to cross the Puente de Isabel II, which was supposed to take us directly into the main part of the neighbourhood, with all the popular restaurants and bars, but instead we crossed a bridge or two earlier and ended up in a part of town that was much more residential and local - as represented by the bar we settled on. We didn't quite know where we were, and we couldn't quite figure out why there wasn't anything interesting around us. Again, it all comes back to be authentic versus touristy, and being careful what you wish for.

Anyway, Trina as a whole definitely had a totally different vibe from the Old Town. While the Old Town felt a bit like a theme park, Trina felt like a real neighbourhood, like people actually lived there. It probably deserves more exploration.

(Seriously, where are all the barbers? I couldn't even find one in Triana, and this time I was actually looking. I guess tourists don't really need their hair cut)

Comparison with Barcelona

Inevitably, when I tell people that I went to both Seville and Barcelona, people will ask me which I prefer.

It's a tough question to answer, because I genuinely liked both cities. I will say, however, that while I think Seville is a prettier town than Barcelona, I felt that there was more going on in the latter. Seville felt like a town of tourist attractions, and you begin to think that there's maybe not much going on beyond that. Barcelona also has a ton of tourist attractions, but one gets the impression that there's an honest-to-goodness city to be explored once you move past them.

So on the whole I guess Barcelona has a slight edge here, though I would gladly revisit both.

(Ironically, on the train out of Seville to Madrid...we finally caught sight of a barber shop. I think Seville is missing out on a lucrative opportunity here)

Looking for Paella in All the Wrong Places

2024-10-26T00:38:02Z

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The COVID-19 pandemic put a cramp in my travel habits, as it did with everyone. The last overseas trip that Evelyn and I went on was to Poland in 2016 for a wedding and the last one that we actually planned was to Greece in 2015 (and, my God, it's hard for me to accept that Greece 9 years ago). We've been to a handful of relatively local destinations in the interim (Vancouver, New York, PEI) but nothing particularly foreign.

And while I do remain part of an increasingly small minority of people who still thinks about the pandemic in the present tense, I also wanted to finally visit someplace a bit more exotic.

So...with our vaccines topped up, we choose Spain. Or rather I choose it, and I dragged Evelyn along.

I wanted to avoid a repeat of the madness of Greece. We managed to pack a lot into 10 days for that trip, and it was all great, but the trade off was that we were constantly on the move, never staying more than a couple of days in one spot. I wanted something a bit more stable this time so we settled on 6 nights in Barcelona, 3 nights in Seville and 1 night in Madrid since we were flying out of there the next day.

The trip was planned just as locals started protesting mass tourism in Spain and other parts of Europe, and while I'd hoped that travelling in September would spare us the worst of it, I also got some advice on how to blend in...or at least on how to avoid walking around with a giant neon arrow pointed at my head flashing "tourist". Mostly this involved dressing plainly and not being obnoxious.

I started making inquiries. What was Spain like? What was worth seeing? What wasn't? From the very few people I talked to, the consensus seemed to be that:

Barcelona was amazing
Seville was amazing
The food was amazing
Madrid was...not amazing

Were we attacked with water guns? Was the food indeed amazing? Exactly how disappointing was Madrid? Read on to find out!

(Or rather, read on to find out more about Barcelona! Seville and Madrid will be dealt with in a future blog entry since this one is getting quite long).

There is No Barcelona Syndrome

Our first stop was Barcelona, our home for the next few days. Before we get into it though, I want to take a small detour and talk about another famous and tourist-laden European city: Paris. In particular, I want to talk about something called Paris Syndrome.

Paris Syndrome is the cognitive dissonance felt by many tourists when they visit a legendary city like Paris. It's the contrast between knowing in your heart of hearts that Paris is the very epitome of European high-culture and the fact that, when you visit, there are rude people and dog shit everywhere. It's particularly common among Japanese tourists, who tend to put the city on a pedestal and who tend to come from places where, I can only assume, people are more polite and tend to pick up after their pets.

One interesting twist to all of this is that I didn't actually experience Paris Syndrome when I first visited the city 20 odd years ago. I wasn't very well-travelled, and Europe was still so new to me back then, that every street, every back alley, no matter how mundane, took on an air of the exotic for the simple reason that it wasn't home. It's not that I didn't notice the dog shit - I most definitely noticed it - but rather that it lent an "interesting" texture to a place that was already bearing down on me with the weight of its history.

Or maybe part of it is that I come from Montreal, a city with its share of grime. The dog shit didn't faze me as much as some people. Who knows?

So, with that in mind, I would like to point out that there doesn't appear to be such a thing as Barcelona Syndrome - at least, not according to Wikipedia. Everyone I've talked to raves about the place. Madrid? You can skip it. Barcelona? Don't you fucking dare. The food, the architecture, the beaches - by all accounts Barcelona walks on water in a way that Paris does not.

Why is this? Is Barcelona that amazing? Or is it that it doesn't have quite the same lofty reputation as Paris, and so people's expectations are lower? I don't know, but I'll say this. When I was discussing with Evelyn how long we would stay, she expressed concern that 5 days would too much. She was genuinely concerned that we would be bored after day 3.

Since Paris, of course, I've been back to Europe several times and while many parts of it are indeed achingly beautiful, I've now "been there" and "done that", so to speak. I'm no longer impressed by something just because it's different or "exotic" and I can safely say that it takes more than just a slightly foreign looking alleyway to engage my sense of wonder. And dog shit, no two ways about it, is a blight on society.

So, given that this isn't my first rodeo, but also that everyone really, really seems to love Barcelona...how was it?

Less Vibes, More Sights, and Gaudi All Around

Let's start with the Airbnb. It was located in the Barcelona Sans district, right near the train station, and only a 5 minute walk from the metro. While our accommodations were modest, our hostess was legitimately one of the friendliest people I've ever met in my life.

Here's where I learned that Duo Lingo is a lie. Our hostess spoke Ukrainian and Spanish - but not much English. No problem, I think to myself - I've been Duo Lingo-ing Spanish for a over a year and we should be fine, right? Right?

Hahahahaha! I don't know if I'm just bad at this but my Spanish was rough, y'all. As in, non-existent. We desperately ended up relying on Google Translate here. This linguistic problem actually cropped up more than you might imagine given that we were tourists in one of the most heavily visited cities in the world. You see, our attempts to blend in actually worked - kind of. Random people would stop us to ask for directions, in Spanish, only to be met with a laughably broken "No hablo espanol". Devastating.

Still, our room was decent enough and very well situated, so it was hard to complain. And while no part of Barcelona is completely tourist-free, this area wasn't completely overrun with them, so that was a win. The neighbourhood felt...lived in. Pleasant enough, but I didn't get the impression that everything was there for us.

Our first touristy thing to do was booked for the night we flew in - a tour of Casa Batllo, by all accounts a "must see", and so we decided we "had to" see it. It's a building designed by Antoni Gaudi, a name that comes up again and again in connection to Barcelona - it sometimes feels like he designed half the city. For what it's worth, it's an impressive structure - the thing looked like it was made from bones; indeed, I later discovered that the locals sometimes call it the House of Bones.

This feels like a good spot to point out something that immediately sets Barcelona apart from Paris in my mind, either because I'm less of a wide-eyed traveller nowadays or because of something intrinsically different between the two cities. Paris, to me at least, is the type of city where you can just kind of...soak up the vibe. Obviously, there are a ton of specific things to see and do, but it's also possible to just amble along aimlessly and still feel like you're experiencing something special and unique. There's less of that in Barcelona. The city feels grittier, and lazily strolling around is a less interesting experience. Don't get me wrong, there's a ton of cool things to see and do, but it's less vibe and more sights, if that makes sense.

Despite being so crowded, there isn't much dog shit or trash in Barcelona and that night, in bed, we discovered why. It's because the city empties out the garbage bins every single night. We were woken up to the sounds of glass bottles being crushed in a garbage truck around 2 am. Good thing we brought earplugs. I was prepared the next night.

(Interesting philosophical question: if this had happened while I was in Paris, would I have chalked it up to the "texture" of the city? I don't know but I can tell you that I was certainly not impressed this time around).

The next day we toured the Sagrada Familia, another Gaudi special. Nominally a Catholic Basilica, I can safely say that the Sagrada Familia was one of the top things I'll forever remember about Barcelona. As one starts to experience more of Gaudi's work, you begin to notice similar themes. The guy was really into making his creations look organic - grown rather than designed. Sometimes that meant making them look like they were built from bones, and sometimes it meant making them look like they were crystals jutting out of the ground. In the case of the Sagrada Familia, it looked like both. I was surprised to learn that it's not the official Cathedral of Barcelona (that title goes to the much more aptly name Barcelona Cathedral - by all accounts a much less impressive structure) but given that, due to Gaudi's untimely death, it's still not finished after 150 years, I suppose it's not surprising.

Later that day we visited Park Guell, yet another Gaudi creation (this guy is everywhere in Barcelona). Not quite the jaw dropping spectacle of the Sagrada Familia, Park Guell still looks like something out of Dr. Seuss.

A Brief Culinary Detour

We obviously had to eat that night and so now might be good time to talk about the food. It's definitely one of things people tend to comment on when they talk about Spain. People seem to love it. When questioned on the subject, a friend of mine remarked: "Two words: jamón ibérico". Another friend won't stop talking about the paella and yet another friend raves about the tapas, which is weird because tapas aren't really a recipe, right? More of a...portion size?

So I'll get this out of the way: the food was...fine. Tasty, but not mind blowing. Just okay.

Maybe it's because I've visited France and Italy where the food was, indeed, mind blowing, but I found the food in Spain a bit lackluster. I'm honestly not sure what the big deal is about paella; I tried it three times and it was certainly good each time but people treat this dish like it's some kind of religious experience it just...was not that for me. To be fair, it's possible that we simply picked the wrong spots - I'm pretty sure at least of them was a tourist trap - but it's hard for me to imagine even a professionally prepared paella changing my life. I'm willing to be corrected here!

And the jamón ibérico? People will yell at you if you call it prosciutto, so I won't call it prosciutto, but it's definitely prosciutto adjacent, you know? It's delicious, but I've had similar stuff before.

One Spanish culinary item that did, in fact, stand out for me might not be what you expect: it was the vermouth. Vermerterias, bars that specialize in vermouth, are everywhere in Spain, many of them with their own house blends. Vermouth gets a bad rap in North America - it's the stuff you grudgingly mix into a Martini or a Manhattan - but good vermouth is criminally underrated, and Spain is awash in the stuff. It was great.

Oh! And the cheesecake. I actually really, really liked the cheesecake. It's definitely not like the firm, dense, almost crumbly cheesecake you get here, which I also love. Spanish cheesecake is less cake and more creamy custard. You almost eat it like a pudding. It's amazing.

El Born and the Gothic Quarter

On the advice of a friend, we booked a free (sort of - these people work on donations) walking tour for the next day. While the walking tour was extremely informative, and our tour guide was very knowledgeable and very nice, I know that years from now the only thing I'm going to really remember about it is that the tour took us through the Old Town of Barcelona.

The Old Town, consisting of two areas called El Born and the Gothic Quarter, effectively constitutes a giant exception to my idea that Barcelona doesn't have much of a "vibe". The Old Town is all vibe. The entire neighbourhood is bursting with charming little cafes, restaurants, side streets and alleyways, many of which date back to the medieval era, but I can't think of a single thing that stuck out more than the neighbourhood as a whole. It's very easy to get lost here, and it's very easy not to care.

And there's a whole set of Roman ruins underneath! You can buy a ticket to see them at the local History Museum. They were discovered relatively recently; there's a black and white photograph of it in the museum. Fascinating stuff. Evelyn and I spent way longer looking at old garum factories than I thought was humanly possible.

How To Visit a Beach in Barcelona

Barcelona actually has a city beach, in the Barceloneta district, that dates back to 1992, when the city hosted the Olympics. It's serviceable but is nonetheless not the one many people think of when they want to take a dip. No, the town that crosses everyone's minds when they think of "Barcelona" and "beaches" is Sitges, which isn't actually in Barcelona.

In theory, getting there should have been easy for us. We were right near the train station. It's only a 45 minute ride. This should have been a cake walk.

Alas, we...did not fully understand how the train ticketing system worked, and ended buying a ticket to someplace completely different. Luckily, Evelyn discovered our mistake before we got too far. Still...28 Euros down the drain and we only got to Sitges around 4pm.

It was worth it, though. The town itself is pretty, sports 17 beaches, none of which were crowded at that time of year and all of which were beautiful. The Mediterranean waters were choppy but warm, and became much less choppy the more you swam out. I can only imagine how pleasant the excursion would have been if we had, you know, actually gotten on the right train.

So that's the lesson I took from that day. Take it from someone who's been there: make sure you get on the right train! Words to live by.

Final Thoughts

Barcelona definitely feels like a place that would reward repeated visits. I can imagine spending months or even years looking for that one hole in the wall that serves up the best paella you've ever had, or that one underground cavern with the secret vermouth barrel that will become the gold standard by which you will judge all other vermouths.

And it feels more real than Paris, like people actually work and live there. I think the city isn't burdened by the weight of expectations, and it lets you have more fun. I definitely want to go back.

Maybe with, you know, some actual Spanish under my belt this time.

As I mentioned, Barcelona was the first part of a longer trip to Spain. Stay tuned for my thoughts on Seville and Madrid.

Spain (September 2024)

2024-10-06T02:39:00Z

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Evelyn and I took a 10 day trip to Spain in September 2024.

11 albums

2024-09-24T20:50:11Z

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Barcelona: Noisy, gritty, vibrant. Surprisingly many vermouterias. Seville: Beautiful, charming, fun. Surprisingly few barbers.

2024-09-22T17:55:11Z

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There is a glut of vermouterias in Barcelona, many of them with their own house blends and...I kind of love it?

Yes, I Know That Chai Means Tea

2024-06-28T14:21:26Z

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Yes, I know that the word "chai" literally just means "tea" in Hindi (and other languages) and that the term "chai tea" is therefore technically redundant. I don't care. I will still occasionally say "chai tea" and I don't feel like I'm committing some kind of linguistic sin by doing so.

The English translation of "chai" is, of course, "tea" and it refers to a very generic category of usually hot and often caffeinated beverages made from steeping various kinds of leaves. On the other hand, the word "chai" in English usually refers to a very specific kind of spiced tea, often taken with milk, that Westerners typically associate with the culinary tradition of South Asia. One would not normally use the word "chai" in English to refer to the bog standard Orange Pekoe that one might drink for a caffeine fix in the morning before work.

I could just use the word "chai" on its own to refer to this spiced beverage and leave it at that, but if I'm comparing it to other kinds of tea, like Earl Grey or Irish Breakfast, then I might add the word "tea" after each item to stress the unifying concept. So I might say "Earl Grey tea", "Irish Breakfast tea" or (the horror!) "chai tea".

My point is that the word "chai" in English doesn't mean the same thing as it does in other languages, despite being borrowed from those languages. Sometimes chai is used as more of an adjective than a noun, and that's just how languages work. They borrow words and they change them.

It's exactly the same battle with a word like "naan". I know it just means "bread" in Persian but that's simply not how the word is used in English. In English it refers to a specific kind of flat bread, usually made in a specific kind of oven. I mean, a French baguette is just "bread" as well, but I suspect you wouldn't use the word "naan" to describe it.

And yes, I would use the (technically redundant) combination "naan bread" if, like the tea example above, I was trying to differentiate naan from various other kinds of bread, like sourdough or pita, and I wanted to emphasize the unifying characteristic of all the things I was talking about.

So stop with the sanctimonious word policing, already! Languages evolve and trade, and this is just one example in a very long line of examples.

2024-06-25T14:26:58Z

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I mean...not quite everyone is welcome, right? Man, solicitors get no respect!

Desmond Rivet - Lifestream