Clarissa's Blog

Rafael Chirbes was insanely talented. But he lived like he wasn’t even a teensy bit talented. He put in so much work like he was the least talented hack on the planet.

That’s the only way to live.

In Rafael Chirbes’s diaries, you can see the extraordinary amount of reading, thinking, struggling to write, editing, rewriting, self-doubt, pain, and desolation that went into each of the novels. Chirbes’s Crematorio and En la orilla are the last two novels published while he was alive. These are his masterpieces. The writer put a lifetime of reading and thinking about literature, about art, about language, about what makes a good novel into them. He would read for 10-15 hours a day and then write about what he read. For years, for decades, that’s how he lived.

When I think about that and the ease with which AI produces its “texts”, it’s kind of really funny. I don’t think we’re in great danger of being replaced, is what I’m saying.

Ladies, you need to be babymaxxxxing…especially later in life.

Women who had a child after the age of 40 were FOUR TIMES more likely to live to 100.

Pregnancies massively increase progesterone, the most healing female hormone. pic.twitter.com/pELuaEcxD6

— Carnivore Aurelius ©🥩 ☀️🦙 (@AlpacaAurelius) June 8, 2026

Having babies is obviously amazing. But isn’t it more likely if you can get pregnant, carry to term, and give birth at that age, that already means that you’re healthier and more resilient than the norm?

Having been pregnant and given birth at 40, I know for a fact that it is a physically very taxing proposition. If you are capable of carrying it out, it’s a sign of your general state of health. And even if you are capable of doing it, it takes a while to recover, and very often the recovery is never complete.

Obama never ran away in the middle of an interview.

— Alex Cole (@acnewsitics) June 7, 2026

True. Obama never managed to extract a journalist’s tongue from his anus fast enough to walk away.

Trump was giving an interview about election fraud in California to a bizarre, very unhinged woman journalist. She kept repeating that she had traveled to Wisconsin for the interview, like she had gone all the way to the Democratic Republic of Congo and expected some sort of an award for bravery. Her face was contorted by rage and disgust throughout the interview. In short, an unprofessional, horrible hag who is paid insane amounts of money to throw fits on TV.

Trump simply got up, took off his mic, and threw it to the ground.

I don’t know what we are going to do when Trump’s term in office ends. We have good candidates on the Republican side, but not a single one capable of getting up, throwing the mic on the floor, and walking away. Every single one of the Republican politicians will continue trying to explain, persuade, and make himself understood. They all still think that it is possible to convince if enough evidence is provided.

Latin American leftists are having a very normal one:

Heil Hitler https://t.co/IbRBgwUY3N

— Gustavo Petro (@petrogustavo) June 7, 2026

Gustavo Petro is a little Putinoid bitch, by the way. Leftism in Latin America began to collapse when USAID was cut because Putin doesn’t have enough money to keep all of it going by himself. Now leftist bastards like Petro is losing everywhere, and it’s a joy to behold.

Speaking of cats, when Misty first came to live with us, she once clambered onto my bed and I started rubbing her behind her ear. In response, she rolled the tip of her tongue out and started emitting a low guttural noise. I honestly thought I had damaged the poor animal, and she was in distress. It was explained to me that she was engaging in an activity known as purring that actually meant she was enjoying herself.

How was a person supposed to know that, though? How is one supposed not to become a total neurotic when creatures in her vicinity begin to engage in unexpected behaviors?

Americans are in awe of people who can speak more than one language. When my polyglottery comes up, everybody immediately begins to react like I walk on water. This makes me feel very shy. To me, moving between languages is normal. I’ve never lived in any other way. When others start treating me like some sort of royalty for something that I do as easily as breathing, I feel self-conscious.

Of course, it’s very endearing. Whenever somebody meets me for the first time and finds out about the languages, they start announcing me to other people like I’m the 7th wonder of the world. Like, they are so happy to have uncovered this wonderful phenomenon that they can’t wait to share with others. Embarrassing. Sweet, lovely, but embarrassing.

As for learning languages, I don’t see any differences in my American and my European students. Among colleagues, Germans speak amazing Spanish. Brits are downright terrible. I am talking about Hispanists, people whose profession is the study of Hispanic literature and culture. There are exceptions, of course. Here I’m speaking in generalities. The French are not as bad as the Brits, but pretty bad. Italians are, as a rule, very good, but not nearly as amazing at speaking Spanish as German colleagues. The German-speaking Swiss are also great. As I keep saying, there is an affinity here, the nature of which I do not fully understand.

What I said above, however, only has to do with the actual quality of speaking the language. In terms of producing interesting ideas in the field of Hispanic studies, British scholars are about a hundred light years ahead of the Germans.

Going back to what I was actually asked, I see no differences in teaching Americans or Europeans. They’re equally great.

I promise just one more, people. I won’t turn into one of those besotted cat people.

Oh, whom am I kidding?

In jail, Labayru collaborated with the authorities. With her help, two French nuns and two Plaza de Mayo mothers were kidnapped and murdered by the dictatorship. She was a very young woman who had given birth in jail, and I would never judge her for doing whatever she had to do to survive. After she was released, Labayru found herself shunned by other survivors and the families of those who died in captivity. If you did nasty things in order to survive, it’s understandable, but the reality is that you still did nasty things. Maybe a little bit of humility about that is in order. Labayru is congenitally incapable of humility, however, and has been acting in a way that has made a lot of people mad.

One example is her insistence that she was raped in jail. There was an officer among her captors who would take Labayru on dates to restaurants, hotels, and even international trips. Yes, her captivity was of the kind where she could travel to Uruguay and Brazil to have vacations with her husband. Labayru had sex with the officer who would take her to these restaurants and trips. She also had threesoms with him and his wife. The officer never physically hurt or threatened to hurt her. Moreover, Labayru enjoyed the sex. She enjoyed it so much that even today, fifty years later, she cannot stop describing how very enjoyable it was and how entitled she was to some physical enjoyment while in captivity.

One can argue that there was most definitely an element of coercion in her relationship with this officer. But the idea that this is an equivalent of forcible rape that many women actually experienced during the dictatorship does not land. Labayru managed to get the officer in question and his supervisor convicted to twenty plus years in jail for these “rapes.” She is shocked that other survivors are not flocking to her in support over this.