A ‘Vocaburary’ of 2,000 smiles

by time news

2023-06-09 10:10:51

traditional forms of take the pressure off a newspaperwhat is done starting from scratch every twenty-four hours, it’s been coffee or cigarettes, when smoking was allowed in the newsrooms. but there is another much healthier resource to disconnecthow is make up words as a mental hobbyfun that Jose Luis Blasco has exercised with the complicity of his friend and partner Francisco Antonio Carrasco, who signs the introduction of the book. Paco confesses that with José Luis shared very good moments “playing with wordsdiscovering new nuances, laughing at them in the few moments that the journalistic exercise allowed us ».

The material that was emerging from those sparks of ingenuity allowed Blasco to feed a mini-section Ofaria that for 15 months headed the Opinion pages of this newspaper, under the title ‘Vocaburlario’, a word that in itself is already an example of what I wanted: to play with words, twist them, shake them, shake them, transform them into an end with the complicity of wit and fine irony, as a mental birth from which others are born that are not in the dictionary. For Carrasco, it is a «an exercise in lucidity mental, command of language, a wonderful game that has allowed him to overcome the vicissitudes of life in moments of pain.

This reference to pain connects with the heartfelt dedication of the book to the medical team that cares for his dedicated health, a circumstance that, far from dejecting him into discouragement, helps him grow in the face of adversity, without being intimidated by that treacherous stab of life that is cancer. So both the newspaper section and the book have undoubtedly served as beneficent therapy. After all, the words ‘tumor’ and ‘humor’ are only differentiated by one letter, and from both arises ‘thumor’, which the ‘vocabulary’ defines as “good mood to face a cancerous disease». “Thanks to the doctors I am here,” confessed an emotional José Luis on the afternoon of the presentation, surrounded by friends, colleagues and family, including his children Clara and Alberto, agile conductors of an event designed with the precision and interest of some good newspaper pages, an art in which his father has been a recognized and award-winning master.

To distinguish itself from a normal book this one is not satisfied with a prologuebut it has three, which gives rise to turn that word into a “trilogue”, in which the journalist Santiago Alcanda and the members of the comedy duo Gomaespuma, Guillermo Fesser and Juan Luis Cano participate, with whom he shared early wit games when they were studying Journalism at the Madrid Complutense University. Alcanda qualifies such a peculiar dictionary as “quevedesco, sown, didactic and well-intentioned”, and proposes to the RAE to consider Blasco’s proposals as extremaño to refer to an Aragonese living in Extremadura. Fesser calls Pepeluí –so he writes– “grammatical conjurer”, because “he is capable of cutting, shuffling and rearranging to win us the game of meaning with a bluff and with a smile”. He cites as an example the ‘lechungas’ or “vegetables in poor condition”, and compares Blasco to a plastic surgeon who disassembles words and then reconstructs them with the syllables of others, giving as an example ‘perroviario’, «the mongrel of a Renfe employee». For his part, Juan Luis Cano observes how Blasco, «witty and daring, has delved into our dictionary, has crumpled words and dissected them to the point of squeezing their juices and, using humor as a tool, has managed to open up a significant new reality.” The book is enriched with a precious epilogue signed by the fruitful writer Alejandro López Andradacountryman of José Luis, who draws the sentimental landscape of an old friendship that emerged many years ago in the The Ponderosa family bar, with the soundtrack of the popular songs that played in the establishment’s ‘jukebox’ in the seventies, such as ‘La caza’ by Juan y Junior, ‘Romeo y Julieta’ by Karina or ‘Ob-la-dí O- la-dá’ by the Beatles, a common hobby of the author and epilogue writer who grew while they went to the Pozoblanco institute “in a slow and limping bus, which had the winter sewn to its engine and coughed and snorted like an ox with silicosis”, a a time when José Luis was already basting together “phrases stitched together by a most subtle irony that flashed on those icy and very blue winter mornings.” Ah, the beauty of words. Alejandro describes his countryman as a “sensitive man who loves his landfriend of his friends, a good man in the best Machadian sense».

Trilogue and epilogue are like red carpets spread out at the feet of José Luis Blasco so that he displays his stellar performance as a conjurer of words, close to 2,000, which he pulls out of his sleeve or top hat while making us accomplices in his wit games, which invite us to imitate him although never to match him.

Between discretion and efficiency

José Luis Blasco has practiced journalism for nearly forty years. first in The Voice of Cordobathat independent newspaper that in 1981 broke the monopoly of the local presswhich he joined in the summer of 1982. It was intended that the correspondents investigate local problems, but their professional conditions did not always allow it, so many ‘controversial’ issues had to be dealt with by the editors themselves who had become in occasional special envoys to towns, as was the case of José Luis as well as paco louis cordoba. Then he addressed a series of interviews with mayors under the title “1,000 days of democratic town halls”, which allowed discover the new municipal reality. And lend support to sports pages on weekends, with chronicles of matches in which The Pedroches teams were fightingwhich allowed him to satisfy two of his passions, his land and soccer.

One of the greatest satisfactions that I keep from The voice was to assist the professional growth of its journalistswhat in the middle of 1984 they disembarked, well trained, in the Diario CÓRDOBA, after its acquisition at public auction by the company Informaciones Cordobesas. In the Dean Blasco newspaper he continued to progress, reaching editor-in-chief and deputy editor. He added to his skills the specialization in journalistic design, a scaffolding in which to organize news, chronicles, reports and articles with an aesthetic and clear sense, without forgetting the growing prominence of images or the joyous arrival of color, which put an end to newspapers. sad. and all done always with discretion, not at odds with efficiency or neglect of detail in its perfectionist zeal, that never. His merits were recognized in the Córdoba Journalism Award and with the continental European Newspaper Award no less, which was like putting a pike in Flanders. In his well-deserved retirement, José Luis continues devoted to a new trade, that of ‘inventor of words’ that awaken those smiles that we are so in need of.

‘vocabulary’

Author: Jose Luis Blasco

Editorial: Trifold. Madrid, 2023.

#Vocaburary #smiles

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