Avocados

"...So much is crowded into the middle –
the guitars of Spain, piles of ripe avocados..."
-Aristotle by Billy Collins

In Mexico, the price of avocado is climbing ever-higher and putting the squeeze on people who often eat only a select amount of vegetables to begin with. The Mexican parliament has officially re-designated many vegetables as 'meat' in order to get people to eat more of them. People are pissed.

Here's something I did not know before today:
Aguacate, Spanish for Avocado, is derived from a Nahuatl word for nut. Like testicle-nut. Not like a brazil-nut. Like, a ball. Thank you BBC.

In Spain the focus of the shitstorm of la Liga politics has returned to the owner's hands after resolving the player's strike--a strike which delayed the season a week. Currently on the bitching block are tv broadcast rights and revenues.

Madrid and Barça split almost half of all revenues (though they get 3X the viewership of all other teams) and the other teams say that the additional money helps them reinforce their choke-hold at the top of the table. This issue isn't a threat to play, though.

On the field,the season is sputtering into gear and focus as the Champions league tournament is set to start. Barça will play AC Milan in their group's first round. They last played them in the Gamper cup right before last season. It was not a game as much as an embrace between Ronalidnho and Barça two seasons after his leaving for Italy, and a kick in the backside to Ibrá, sending him back to Milan after a mal-tempered, though mostly successful season. His last game at the Nou Camp.

Tomorrow there will be no Ronaldinho, having gone back to Brasil to teach Neymar how to play, and even Ibra has pulled out citing a practice injury. It seems a little auspicious since Ibra was traded away from Barça after costing a net loss to the team of around €40 million. It's poor form then to go and play against them in their home.

The Italian league, Serie A, just started this past weekend after being--you guessed it--on strike. Serie A and by extension AC Milan should be out of form for a while. Barça would have been presumably in good shape to win, but they drew 2-2 at Real Sociedad on Saturday.

Up in the Basque country games usually are pretty spirited. The history of Spanish football has always had a very strong corner in the northeast. Though Athletic Bilbao is more decorated, Sociedad have shown that they can bring heat to Barcelona and after capitalizing on two weak defensive plays to equalize in the second half, they managed to hold the stunned champions of europe to the draw.

Barça, two games into la Liga, are in fourth place behind Madird, Valencia, and Real Betis. I'm happy for Betis. they were elevated from the second division recently. Enjoy third place while it lasts.

Another cost of the game was Alexis Sanchez tearing a thigh muscle and now being out for about two months. Inversely, Carles Puyol, our team captain, is looking set to play after being almost entirely out of commission since January.

So many players, so many people are pressed into the middle of a struggle between opportunity and time. People are aware of their decay, and fear the deadlock of inactivity while their sell by date comes running to them.

Squeezed under a mountain of avocados,
that nobody can afford.


Ronaldinho vs Neymar, summer 2011