Some human creations which help to make our world habitable ...

• The aria from the Goldberg Variations of JS Bach played by Glenn Gould; the famous Adagio from the first movement of the sonata, by L. Beethoven, known as 'Moonlight (Mondschein)', performed by Alfred Brendel;
• Some pieces of the Romanic movement, for example: the church and the frescos in Sant Climent de Taüll or the cloister of the collegiate Church of San Pedro de Soria;
• Some of the paintings by Jan Vermeer, like The Letter, or by Picasso, as one of the portraits of Jacqueline;
• Some Bruce Springsteen's songs as In a Brilliant Disguise, which title I used in one of my academic essays, or Bob Dylan's, as Absolutely Sweet Marie;
• Some poems as the number five of Catul, from which I remember a wonderful translation by Ernesto Cardenal, or twenty centuries later, EE Cummings, Lady of Silence.
• Serrat when sings Joan Salvat Papasseit, for example, in Collita d'amor
• Raimon singing Ausias Marc's, Veles e Vents (such an extraordinary language can not disappear), Marc always seemed a very daring poet to me when he wrote "bullirà el mar com la cassola al forn"
• A sonnet by Shakespeare (the LXXVI) which I translated, a summer day many years ago, with some friends's help in Formentera, while we were listening to Formentera Lady...
• There was a time where we all were a bit 'french' and we listened to Brel and watched Truffaut's films, as Jules et Jim.
• I remember now when we awarded Woody Allen the degree of UPF doctor honoris causa (here, you can listen to Gershwin, played at the beginning of Manhattan). I quoted a sentence from Gustave Flaubert (perhaps in English, how awful!) but which I really like and I copy here: "La parole humaine est comme un chaudron fêlé où nous battons des mélodies à faire danser les ours, quand on voudrait attendrir les étoiles".
• The contemporary writer who, in my opinion, has written in the best Spanish is Jorge Luis Borges. I attach you two poems: one, much borgian; the other, Ulrica, strange in his work.
• Two poems from a couple of poets that I like a lot (interwoven and on the same subject) for a friend of mine who certainly will read this blog: First of all, Dona de primavera, from Joan Margarit to Luis García Montero: Darrere les paraules només et tinc a tu // Trist el qui mai no ha perdut // per amor una casa // Trist el qui mor envoltat de respecte i prestigi. // Jo em crec el que passa en la nit // estrellada d'un vers. And, now, Merece la pena (un jueves telefónico), by Luis García Montero.

Finally...
Those who know me, know that I love you very much the Italy where I spent (before becoming Rector!) long periods of time: I like the colours in Toscana and the clean light in Sicilia, I like Petrarca and I like Camilleri (from whose all Montalbanos I read with the Italian from Sicilia); I like the Rossellini in Città Aperta and Stromboli. And I like the Barolo and the pasta, and I like the 'finezza' of all Italian lawyers. And I also enyoy all the Renaissance paintings, but as this is the blog of a Rector, I would like to finish with Lorenzetti's frescos in the Palazzo Pubblico of Siena, in my opinion, the best representation of the 'buon' and 'cattivo governo'. With all my desires to set up the good governance in the UPF.