With her records and shows, Chavela Vargas has been my confessor, my shrink, my twin spirit, my sentimental university. I think it's fair to begin the Specials with her.
There are many records by Chavela, the best out of the ones available being "Macorina." It was recorded in Madrid some four years ago. Every track is a jewel, so get ready to cry -you'll look new.

Torn off but educational, La Lupe (drama, she's all drama) suits very well one's city wanderings or home stays. She plunged into all genres. Not all of her records are great, but there's a must song in each. The best option is to buy the triple offer properly called "La trilogia" and containing three comprehensive CD's -a compilation of Lupe's work in itself. Released by Manzana-Producciones Dicograficas.

If I were to make "La Lupe. The film" I could only come up with one singer with same nerve and mood: India. (She happens to have worked with Tito Puente as well, the one who "dropped" Lupe once). I recommend a Mega Mix of tracks remixed by Master at Work and containing the Mother of all Covers of "Ese hombre que tu ves ahi" with sort of tropical dance arrangements. Nobody sings it better, not even its first singer, Rocio Jurado.

And since in Christmas, like it or not, we all end up dancing somehow, I recommend you MANGU (Island Miami); I'm glad Antonio Ketama told me about it. A New Yorker Latin musician, actually contemporary. He makes salsa, but I had never heard such breath-taking bases. Very modern, in its best sense. Don't buy it if you're into Ricki Martín.

Also to dance to, compiled and mixed by Dimitri from Paris: "A night at the Playboy Mansion". Delicious. And if you're truly eclectic I also recommend another Dimitri CD: "Sacre Bleu." Very pop and almost too refined, but delicious as well.

To conclude, Femi Kuti, the son of legendary Fela Kuti. His "Femi Kuti. Shoki Remixed" album is a good wakeup call to expiate last night's hangover.

"Disgrace" by J.M.Coetzee. This man is one of South Africa's most important voices. Great literature. It's this year's finding to me. What a sad book this is, especially suitable for patients, its reading brings you so down that once you hit the bottom you can't but come back up. Seriously, Coetzee is an outstanding writer, and the novel provides a routine bloodcurdling vision of today's South Africa. We all know things aren't right there, but we seem to care so little...

"Address Unknown" by Kressmann Taylor. A legendary novella (77 pages) when it was first published in 1938. Considered a masterpiece ever since, and after being out of print for decades (Hitler himself banned it), it's equally sensational in its new edition. That's what I've been told, I didn't read back in 1938 yet. But reading it now, I kind of figure out what it might have meant seventy years ago. It's a simple story about two pen pals, one American and the other German. It's 1932, they own a company in San Francisco and the German has gone back home. The author, an actual visionary, uses these letters to state a bloodcurdling message against nazism. An actual visionary.

To conclude, something jollier. It's hard to find really funny literature. Once through Anita Loos, Dorothy Parker and Ramon Gomez de la Serna, there's not much left. Well, there is: Roddy Doyle. Film spectators might remember him as writer of "The Commitments", "The Snapper", and "The Van" (these two directed by Stephen Frears).
I recommend "The Woman Who Walked into Doors" and "A Star Called Henry". Being funny doesn't mean being lighthearted or badly written. I'm a fan of this man. I'll tell you more about him. And me.