<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rss xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" xmlns:dc="http://purl.org/dc/elements/1.1/" xmlns:dcterms="http://purl.org/dc/terms/" xmlns:atom="http://www.w3.org/2005/Atom"  xmlns:content="http://purl.org/rss/1.0/modules/content/" version="2.0">
  <channel>
    <title><![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - love]]></title>
    <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/etiquetes/love/]]></link>
    <description><![CDATA[Ara Balears in English - love]]></description>
    <language><![CDATA[es]]></language>
    <ttl>10</ttl>
    <atom:link href="http://en.arabalears.cat:443/rss-internal" rel="self" type="application/rss+xml"/>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA['Naked' or the conjugation of the verb 'to love']]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/naked-or-the-conjugation-of-the-verb-to-love_129_5843158.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>We all remember that verse from the iconic song <em>Boig per tu</em>, which the group Sau sang and said: “How can I love you / if you are so far from me”. The verb ‘estimar’ –from the Latin '<em>aestimare'</em>, with the meaning of determining the value of something– served Catalan to distance itself from the solemnity that ‘amar’ had acquired, a direct heir of the Latin '<em>amare'</em>. Spanish also resorted to an alternative and found it in ‘<em>querer’</em>, coming from ‘<em>quaerere’</em>, which refers us to the act of wanting to obtain (something). Nino Bravo’s emotional song –with that insistent chorus: “<em>Porque te quiero, / te quiero, te quiero / y hasta el fin te querré”</em>–, carries within it a verb whose semantic history never ceases to suggest a certain idea of determination. Our ‘estimar’, on the other hand, leads us originally to set a price on an inanimate (or animate) referent. If we continue this journey through the Romance languages, Italian and French take the Latin ‘<em>amare’</em> and make daily use of it. We are reminded of this by songs like <em>Ti amo</em>, by Umberto Tozzi, and <em>Je t’aime, moi non plus</em>, by Serge Gainsbourg and Jane Birkin. This duo, with their “I love you and, at the same time, not quite”, proclaimed to the wind the human contradictions implicit in this universal sentiment. A similar tension runs through the novel <em>Nu (diari d’un postadolescent)</em>, by Carles Cortés, published by the Vincle publishing house this 2026. The book, which adopts the genre of autofiction and the form of a personal diary, unfolds almost the entire kaleidoscope of meanings that the Romance languages have been depositing in the act of loving: valuing the other, wanting them, possessing them, or surrendering to them. <em>Nu</em> could seem like a novel about male homosexuality and about the need some feel to hide it: “What sadness for those who deny their sexual preference and, due to pressure from their environment or their own actions, end their life with someone who is not to their liking,” says Teseu, the narrator's protagonist and <em>alter ego</em> of the author. Throughout the novel, ambiguities and concealments function, in some characters, as spaces of protection against society. This fear of showing oneself runs through much of the story. Teseu, nearing sixty, reproaches his lover: “You don't want anyone in your circle to know of my existence.” But <em>Nu</em> goes much further, it speaks of the difficulty of loving others and loving oneself. The novel is constructed as a sentimental archaeology made of desires, losses, dependencies, fears, and disappointments surrounding the ethereal ‘to love’. So much so that, upon finishing the reading, the reader can hardly avoid asking themselves a question: do we humans know how to love? It is a question that has occupied art and artists and which <em>Nu</em> formulates with particular intensity. In this sense, <em>Je t’aime, moi non plus</em> seems to permeate much of the story. Teseu remembers that he has never received a hug from his mother and, yet, a few pages later he writes: “I love you, mother.” Between these two sentences lies much of the emotional territory of <em>Nu</em>. The work travels through the skin and soul of Theseus and puts words to that which had remained buried throughout the protagonist's nearly forty years of life to remind us that writing is illuminating areas of memory that had remained hidden. Therefore, towards the end, Theseus admits: “I thought those abuses from when I was fourteen had left no mark”. And it is precisely in this need to put words to life that the diary acquires an almost three-dimensional dimension and presents us with Theseus in his triple condition as a cultured reader, a professor of Catalan Philology, and a renowned writer. From this perspective, literary allusions become games of mirrors that reveal, in turn, the protagonist's biography. When he speaks of <em>The Magic Mountain</em>, by Thomas Mann, he writes: “I stop the passage of time with reading”. The phrase overflows the simple literary reference, because time is precisely the great protagonist of Mann's novel. Here is the literature professor: he leaves the clue and seeks the complicity of a reader willing to follow the thread.In short, reading <em>Nu</em> is to traverse the kaleidoscope of meanings –‘estimar<em>’, ‘querer’, ‘amare’, ‘aimer’</em>− with which the Romance languages have been verbalizing the fleeting feeling that stars in the novel. Theseus tries to retain this impossibility in three ways: by loving, reading, and speaking. With bodies, he tries to get closer to others; with books, to stop time; with language, to give form to a way of looking at the world. And neither love, nor literature, nor language can fully overcome loss, but all three allow us to inhabit it.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Rosa Calafat]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/naked-or-the-conjugation-of-the-verb-to-love_129_5843158.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Tue, 08 Sep 2026 05:30:35 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[The film 'The Last Sunrise' turns Mallorca into "something more" than a romance setting]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/culture/the-film-the-last-sunrise-turns-mallorca-into-something-more-than-backdrop-for-romance_1_5831930.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a357679b-e84d-4e4e-a3fe-312ab724a20b_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" /></p><p>Argentinian Maia Reficco and Spaniard Fernando Lindez star in <em>The Last Sunrise</em>, a summer romance that, in addition to addressing themes such as loss and illness, incorporates a reflection on excessive tourism in Mallorca. "It's not just a romance," Lindez (Madrid, 2000) explains in an interview. "The film, I think, touches on other topics and also teaches us to take care of the places where we come from, where we originate, the natural reserves in this world, and not to abuse them," he adds.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Mónica Rubalcava / EFE]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/culture/the-film-the-last-sunrise-turns-mallorca-into-something-more-than-backdrop-for-romance_1_5831930.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Tue, 25 Aug 2026 13:04:20 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <media:content url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a357679b-e84d-4e4e-a3fe-312ab724a20b_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>
      <media:title><![CDATA[Maia Reficco and Fernando Lindez in 'The Last Sunrise'.]]></media:title>
      <media:thumbnail url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a357679b-e84d-4e4e-a3fe-312ab724a20b_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg"/>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[The Argentine Maia Reficco and the Spaniard Fernando Lindez star in the film that addresses issues such as loss and mass tourism]]></subtitle>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[Obsession and consent]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/obsession-and-consent_129_5792211.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p>The premiere of the film <em>Obsessió</em> has coincided in our corner of the world with a remarkable –sexual?– controversy. A politician over 30 years old has finally been expelled from a national-populist political party because he maintains affective relations with a minor, even though the girl is already 16 years old, the minimum for sexual consent (remember that it used to be 14). Between the two there was a student-teacher relationship, which further complicates matters.There has been a tremendous uproar on social media, motivated by the need or not to position ourselves as a society in the midst of a relationship of this kind, or whether it is enough to simply stick to the law and accept the bond once it is admitted that the girl's consent is valid. But there is a too obvious confusion of terms here: the law speaks of sexual consent, and that relationships from then on can be consensual and, therefore, there is no longer a crime of abuse. But what does this have to do with a relationship? We don't even know, nor do we have to know, if there has ever been sex between the two, apart from the love story ("sentimental relationship", says the professor in a public statement) that has motivated the fuss.Although we can assume so, the sexual act takes a backseat, because what is interesting to evaluate is to what extent a man over 30 plays fair when he seduces a woman – a woman? – so young, who moreover was ‘educating’. To start evaluating this is not for puritans or snobs, nor for moralists heirs of the Church, which has always married people even younger. The point is that love can be very beautiful, but life is long, and everything that seems like love to us, in the end may just be emotional dependence, and even abuse, which, beyond being criminally punishable, cannot be overlooked when people are not very aware of what they are doing or feeling. The writer Vanessa Springora has made an admirable book about all this (<em>The Consent</em>); it is the same ‘in love’ girl who then turns to society and asks: Why did you allow me to?In the recently released film <em>Obsession</em>, we see something similar: a boy makes a girl fall in love with him with a magic spell, and from then on he can't get rid of her. The film is becoming a phenomenon, and I'm not surprised, because it's magnificently shot and acted, especially by the actress (Inde Navarrete) who plays the 'in love' girl. The consummation of the young fool's sex-affective dream transforms into a major horror story, because there is nothing more terrifying than a forced love. Or a true love in a world where it no longer has a place, or when the lover doesn't know how to live up to what is given to him. Some have wanted to see in the film also an allegory of forced consent, or of those relationships based on deceit, or of the emotional dependence of young loves, which are always painfully unhealthy. And who is the monster, then, the fatally 'in love' girl or the one who has forced this love with wicked arts?</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Melcior Comes]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/obsession-and-consent_129_5792211.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Wed, 08 Jul 2026 05:32:16 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[]]></subtitle>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[The love of forgetfulness]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/the-love-of-forgetfulness_1_5788691.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/81aff43b-52d7-49c6-bf22-323aa46ff80a_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" /></p><p>Anne Carson, in the book Types of Water, talks about when she used to visit her father in the hospital. He had dementia, a disease that strips the mind and body of faculties. Carson recalls the verbal current that emanated from her father's lips, a babbling that neurologists call 'word salad' because it dissolves into the air, without possible comprehension. My grandmother has been speaking this foreign language for a while now. She doesn't tell me things directly, she throws them into the world, in case someone can catch them. Her words, like arrows from a distant tribe, graze me, impossibly. Could I ask her, Tita, what do you want to tell me? What were you thinking those times you only offered me silence? Have you been happy, Tita? I would like to remind her of how I have always loved her, without demands, with an elegant complicity. Like hands that grip tightly under a table.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Xisca Homar]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/opinion/the-love-of-forgetfulness_1_5788691.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Fri, 03 Jul 2026 17:51:59 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <media:content url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/81aff43b-52d7-49c6-bf22-323aa46ff80a_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>
      <media:title><![CDATA[The love of forgetfulness.]]></media:title>
      <media:thumbnail url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/81aff43b-52d7-49c6-bf22-323aa46ff80a_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg"/>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[For a while now, he cannot feed himself from the stories of others, his memory is like a sacred temple with its accesses closed]]></subtitle>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[I want you to be the father of my children (if I ever have any)]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/society/want-you-to-be-the-father-of-my-children-if-ever-have-any_1_5753928.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/b8fd5c6e-df32-4ee3-9fe0-db0e7e7fa864_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" /></p><p>We met at a party. When Tito’s was still Tito’s (which makes me feel very old). It all started as good love stories begin: with two glances that met in the middle of the room. “What’s your name?”, “What are you studying?” and a kiss as a promise that I would look for him again. And I did. Some supernatural force wanted me to end up finding him on Facebook (which also makes me feel very old), just from the two questions I asked him. </p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Alba Tarragó]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/society/want-you-to-be-the-father-of-my-children-if-ever-have-any_1_5753928.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Sun, 31 May 2026 16:34:27 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <media:content url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/b8fd5c6e-df32-4ee3-9fe0-db0e7e7fa864_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>
      <media:title><![CDATA[I like to think we have the humor and complicity of Jim and Pam in The Office.]]></media:title>
      <media:thumbnail url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/b8fd5c6e-df32-4ee3-9fe0-db0e7e7fa864_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg"/>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[A personal account of long relationships, vulnerability, and that rare calm of finding someone with whom the future, even if it is scary, seems a little more habitable]]></subtitle>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[Our mammalian love is like this, mom: silent and primitive]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/society/our-mammalian-love-is-like-this-mom-silent-and-primitive_1_5747136.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a767fd94-f50e-49b9-b81e-8c02a88172f5_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" /></p><p>The only daughter is having her birthday: one, specifically. And, with only a few days difference, my mother too. She's turning 55. I like that I fell into this coincidence, because it reminds me more than ever that without a unique mother there would have been no only daughter. I started writing more inwardly and less outwardly when I discovered that the world could be explained through the stories we keep within ourselves. And the story with my mother is one of them. The first one, I'd say. And perhaps, one day, it will also be the last. Because it's a story that never ends.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Alba Tarragó]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/society/our-mammalian-love-is-like-this-mom-silent-and-primitive_1_5747136.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Sun, 24 May 2026 15:29:13 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <media:content url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a767fd94-f50e-49b9-b81e-8c02a88172f5_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>
      <media:title><![CDATA[The Florida Project explores this imperfect mother-daughter relationship.]]></media:title>
      <media:thumbnail url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/a767fd94-f50e-49b9-b81e-8c02a88172f5_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.jpg"/>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[An intimate look at the relationship between an only daughter and her mother, marked by emotional distance, care, and minimal gestures that sustain a bond that never ends]]></subtitle>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA[Blind dates in Palma: The Cristal bar, the headquarters of a 'First Dates' in Mallorca]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/society/blind-dates-in-mallorca-the-cristal-bar-the-headquarters-of-first-dates-in-mallorca_1_5587896.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/3b229ef7-1c5d-4979-846f-0a474df105b8_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.png" /></p><p>The company Como la Liamos has once again chosen Mallorca as the setting for its now-traditional blind dates, which they organize throughout Spain. This time, the Cristal bar in Palma was selected as the venue for this event. <em>First Dates</em> in Mallorca before Christmas. As they detailed in the <a href="https://www.instagram.com/comolaliamos/" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">your Instagram profile</a>The blind dates will take place this Thursday, December 11th, and the show will begin at 8 pm. This will be the second blind dating event the company has organized in Mallorca, following a similar event held last October at the restaurant.<em>More Natural</em> from Blanquerna Street, also in Palma.</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Josep Genovard]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/society/blind-dates-in-mallorca-the-cristal-bar-the-headquarters-of-first-dates-in-mallorca_1_5587896.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Wed, 10 Dec 2025 10:41:26 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <media:content url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/3b229ef7-1c5d-4979-846f-0a474df105b8_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.png" type="image/jpeg"/>
      <media:title><![CDATA[One of the blind dating events]]></media:title>
      <media:thumbnail url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/3b229ef7-1c5d-4979-846f-0a474df105b8_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0.png"/>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[The company 'Como la Liamos' returns to Mallorca for the last edition of the year]]></subtitle>
    </item>
    <item>
      <title><![CDATA["Without the love of my wife and daughters, I don't know if I would be alive."]]></title>
      <link><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/misc/without-the-love-of-my-wife-and-daughters-don-t-know-if-would-be-alive_1_5583315.html]]></link>
      <description><![CDATA[<p><img src="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/db220926-bf0a-4eda-b570-3046fc1192f9_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0_x890y414.jpg" /></p><p>When Ramon Madaula met Silvia Munt in the early 90s, she was a well-known actress and he was a budding actor. "She was a star, she had recently premiered <em>The Diamond Square</em>"He explains. It was in that context that a theater director summoned them both to a café to propose that they star in his play. It was the first time they had met in person. "Neither of us was entirely convinced by the project, and we exchanged home phone numbers to continue talking. That same afternoon, we called each other and confirmed that we didn't want to do it. We didn't work together, but it was the beginning of a relationship that has lasted thirty years."</p>]]></description>
      <dc:creator><![CDATA[Selena Soro]]></dc:creator>
      <guid isPermaLink="true"><![CDATA[https://en.arabalears.cat/misc/without-the-love-of-my-wife-and-daughters-don-t-know-if-would-be-alive_1_5583315.html]]></guid>
      <pubDate><![CDATA[Thu, 04 Dec 2025 21:39:45 +0000]]></pubDate>
      <media:content url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/db220926-bf0a-4eda-b570-3046fc1192f9_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0_x890y414.jpg" type="image/jpeg"/>
      <media:title><![CDATA[Ramon Madaula and Sílvia Munt.]]></media:title>
      <media:thumbnail url="https://static1.ara.cat/clip/db220926-bf0a-4eda-b570-3046fc1192f9_16-9-aspect-ratio_default_0_x890y414.jpg"/>
      <subtitle><![CDATA[Ramon Madaula, actor]]></subtitle>
    </item>
  </channel>
</rss>
