This is a rough transcription of a long conversation with Patrick and Ivonne from 23 March 2017. We began by talking about a Spanish author in Valldemossa before hearing the story of two sisters who canned anchovies. I welcome any suggestions that would improve the transcription. Thanks!

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JP: I do!

Patrick: The Spanish author who lives in Valldemossa? He won’t drink, but he smokes all day. He wrote a book –

Ivonne: {I came here?}

Patrick: Ok. He wrote a book, maybe I told you? A young man growing up in Andratx. His father, is a fisherman and of course the boy is a fisherman, and the fisherman’s daughters and the – what kind of fish are those tiny? –

JP: Sardines?

Patrick: No.

JP: Smaller?

Patrick: I don’t know..

Ivonne: Septiembre? Es {quistise?} septiembre? No? Mucho pescando.

Patrick: Simpre.

Ivonne: Serrano’s, mmm, Bahas?

JP: Es importante? The type if fish?

Patrick: Well, es importante. For the story. ok let’s stay there. One of those small fish that were on top fo the salad, that I don’t like.

JP: Capers?

Ivonne: Gampas? En estir, campas?

Patrick: No. They’re little black…

Ivonne: Anchos?

Patrick: Anchos..

JP: Anchovies!

Ivonne: Anchovies ok!

Patrick: Ok. Ok, so the 2 sisters somehow, the way they canned the anchovies were –

Ivonne: Ah! Sorry,

Patrick: Were, really special. And they became so special and so well known, this poor fishing family, that a Frenchman bought the whole company. They had to go on doing the work, making the – what kind of fish?

JP: Anchovies.

Patrick: Anchovies. And these 2 sisters made the anchovies. And the French company that bought the guy, paid them a lot money. So at that point, he decides his son should get out of the fishing business and go to Paris and find out what he could do there. So he goes there and opens up an antique shop.

Patrick: And the antiques are the {anholes?} that his father pulled up from the sea.

Ivonne: The same from my father? (laughter)

Patrick: Yeah, and it’s illegal –

Patrick: To keep them ,but this son set up a shop in London, no Paris, with this as the principle product.

Ivonne: Princl -ple? Princ -ple

Patrick: What?

Ivonne: When you say a shop, a small shop? Principle?

Patrick: I am, Well, the natural objects. Well that’s the set up, and then from London, there’s a very rich guy, with a daughter, that he wants to marry her off to someone who has a lot of money and a future.

Patrick: Well the daughter is a lesbian, and she obviously does not want to get married to men.

Patrick: She has a girlfriend, but one day, they go into this shop and they see this young man, and he has a big nose and he’s ugly, but something about him, she likes him.

Patrick: -and finally says to her father, who keeps insisting that she get married, that this one man she could marry.

Ivonne: Tiene esto bueno sible. (laughter)

Ivonne: {I lost interest desede}

Patrick: Yeah, well, the father wants a young man, to marry a rich woman. And there is a father who has a rich daughter, he wants her to be married.

Ivonne: Crear – mhmm –

Patrick: But the daughter doesn’t want to get married because she has lesbian girlfriend. But she comes into this guys’ shop and likes all the things there, and looks at him, and he looks like a fish, his face is long face. And, maybe like a parrot.

JP: Mhmm.

Patrick: Anyway, she agrees with her father that that guy, she will marry him. And that guy has to sign a contract to be married in a certain way. They all agree and then the pair would get the fortune. The fortune

JP: Who’s fortune? Her or his?

Patrick: The man. The Englishman’s.

JP: The Englishman’s fortune. Her fathers.

Patrick: Yeah. SO he’s got a real fortune, the other guy has a shop where he makes a good living.

JP: Yes.

Patrick: Ok, so the conditions were that this marriage has to take place like a ritual of certain birds.

Ivonne: indistinct Spanish.

Patrick: Ritual. Yeah. The rich father makes a gigantic cage, and the two of them have to dress up like birds.

Ivonne: I don’t understand the story.

Patrick: What?

Ivonne: I don’t understand, London fel para muchimo?

Patrick: They have to dress up like birds.

Ivonne: Yes what is it? Bird para {hamenon}

Patrick: Vertirse. como barcados. (laughter)

Ivonne: Really?

Patrick: Macho, femine.

Ivonne: oh!

Patrick: And they ahve to be on a, in a big cage, sitting on the rods

JP: Mhmm.

Patrick: Swinging back and forth. And penetrate

Ivonne: I can’t believe –

Patrick: And -!

JP: Wait so they have sex in the course of the marraige – I mean the ceremony?

Patrick: Yeah, if she gets pregnant, it’s done.

JP: oh.

Patrick: And, she got pregnant.

Ivonne: Bacha! Para vestire ve gihar, sume, myuy bueno.

Patrick: She got pregnant, and at that point she goes off to Nicaragua, Nicaragua with her girlfriend.

Ivonne: ohh.

Patrick: Where they’re both ornithologists. (laughter) That’s where that’s the interest in birds. They’re both interested in birds. They really want to study the birds of South, Central America. Meanwhile, the children, are twins.

Ivonne: Hermanos.

Patrick: Yes, hermanos. And with the wealth that was given to them by the father –

Ivonne: Wait a minute, who was the writer, with the book, or amigo tiene nadad?

Patrick: De, De la Rosa. He’s a painter –

Ivonne: No more crear, acambule –

Patrick: He’s always saying en bar embar with –

Ivonne: no no no corner –

Patrick: Cigarette and a little dog called Titch.

Ivonne: Man in numar.

Patrick: Yeah, ok so, the twins are brought up not with the mother, of course, not by the father. The father, arranges them, excuse me, to have tutors from the beginnning.

Patrick: They move around, living in the best hotels, and they eat the best food, and they’re training in art,and music, and they’re really perfectly civilized couple, boy and a girl. So it’s the whole story of building up the firestone hotel. Which would be, the residentia.

Patrick: It’s a play on the Residentia.

JP: oh ok.

Patrick: So, they all get built, they bring the best professors from all over the world, and the best nurses and doctors and it’s the perfect place, for, literate artistic people and also unhealthy people and they got it done and it was working perfect and his sister ran off with a man and got married, the brother was so pissed off, that he burnt the hotel down.

JP: and this is the sister and brother twins?

Patrick: yeah.

JP: Ok and that’s the end?

Patrick: Yeah. Well there’s a little bit more, but you can really get into it and figure out who’re the real people in Valldemossa.

JP: ahh.

Patrick: And, the guy who built the 2 big hotels, and the residentia and Escaldi. Escaldi was built by Marx, a German, man – architect. Who’s son stayed there. And his sons’ name, he was a good guy. He married a beautiful bar -waitress, stewardess –

JP: Flight Attendant?

Patrick: Yeah flight attendant. And they had a beautiful house behind that hotel where they lived.

Ivonne: Where is this house –

Patrick: When you come down in Deia, you start up the hill towards the main part, on the right is a big hotel. Never noticed it?

Ivonne: No.

Patrick: And people from the Pari -philli -phillharmonic could stay there.

Patrick: And the Dutch Philharmonic, and people from the orchestra in Scotland, and so they would be there and we would play music with them, for the diners. Ok, so, this was the whole thing this guy was writing about, he knew the whole history of Escaldi, and the Resdientia, and he just did a fantasy thing. And there was a great diamond in there. Creten? diamond I think. Anyway, he presented his book in Residentia, with an exhibition of his fantastic birds. I wasn’t there, but Adriana was there and she got a book from there and saw all the paintings. So what am I saying that for?

Ivonne: I don’t know about now – when you speak about the books, I remember I don’t know which part you were in, you were in Paris, {which moore of the mountain?} One prince had, must, I don’t know where I mean, in the bg castle, in the top the, room? or there were birds, kinda – I don’t knwo which kind of birds, he wants to paint her. Or explain the, {oushi a letla?} You are a prince of the Courte. Of the court of the where… explain, sometimes I feel about the birds. I can forget, forgot in this palace, in this place beautiful place in the {indistinct} interso, meresala, {indistinct Spanish} what lond of place what kind of birds? For my mama.

Ivonne: But to explain the Courta

Patrick: Was that mad king of Lou Di?

JP: Of Bavaria? I’ve not heard of it, but I’ve been there. Swansee – Swansee castle?

Patrick: Castle was copied by Disney.

Ivonne: But I saw that for a while –

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Note: This recording was followed up with a short sequel I titled About a Self-Published Book.

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Recording filename: 170323-235926-author-in-valldemossa.mp3