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In line with my policy of ‘cultural appropriation ‘…or celebrating the special days and occasions of different places… today we’re going to make pancakes.
Is there anything that you traditionally eat on this last Tuesday before lent begins (Mardi Gras) in your country?
I recently learned that on Stevie Wonder’s [Pastime Paradise](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TLFnokO1Oo) the strings were made with a Yamaha GX-1 synthesiser. It’s crazy, I never even contemplated them being a synth, I always just assumed they were real strings. The song is from 1976, it’s truly amazing for its time. Stevie Wonder used the GX-1 a lot for Songs in the Key of Life, apparently.
That synth is crazy btw. It [looks really cool](https://www.yamaha.com/en/about/experience/innovation-road/collection/detail/2002/image/2002.jpg), like a retro-futuristic space ship church organ. When new in the mid-70s it cost $60 000, which apparently is over 400k of today’s money. And the exact amount Yamaha built them isn’t known, but it’s apparently less than 100, and only a bit more than 10 were sold outside of Japan, two of which Stevie Wonder owned. There isn’t a single one for sale right now, I can only imagine what the price would be. It’s like the holy grail of synthesisers. If I manage to pull of a heist of the Vatican archives and sell all the treasure for 400 trillion € I’ll buy one.
I have been rereading bits of Don Quixote (not the whole thing, it’s reaaaaaally long). There’s a chapter where Don Quixote argues with the priest Licentiate and the innkeeper’s wife about *Tirant lo Blanc*, a chivalric novel.
The innkeeper’s wife insists that the book is wonderful and describes how the protagonist, Tirant, falls in love with the Emperor’s daughter. However, Don Quixote absolutely refuses this and says the interest was purely platonic and there was no romance at all.
It’s really funny because it’s exactly the same argument that fans have today all the time, and that was the beginning of the 17th Century 😂 For example I shipped Don Camillo and Peppone back in university, and it drew my then boyfriend who introduced me to the books absolutely nuts. I reread one book last summer and I was again like, yup, they’re so into one another.
*Flow* getting the Oscars reminded me that I should really watch it. My brother has been recommending it forever.