Music
I majored in music as an undergrad, with a concentration in music theory and with piano as my principal instrument. My skills have atrophied quite a bit, but I still find it very therapeutic to spend time at the keyboard, playing pieces ranging from classical to ragtime to Billy Joel. I do more public performance with the guitar, whether it be with my Spanish classes, at coffee houses, with Stone Church kids prior to their Sunday School classes, or leading the holiday carol sing at Juniata's Madrigal dinner.

I love Hispanic music in its myriad forms and idioms, such as the flamenco guitar of Paco de Lucía, the innovative and socially committed salsa of Rubén Blades and Willie Colón, and the nueva canción latinoamericana or nueva trova of Víctor Jara, Mercedes Sosa, and Pablo Milanés. Since my kids were born, I have also started building a repertory of traditional folk and children's songs in Spanish. The picture which follows is my first and only public performance with my children, accompanying them at a kids' talent night hosted by colleague Grace Fala at her farm.

Hispanic Films
International films are also a great tool for studying other languages and cultures. I organize an Hispanic video series every semester at Juniata and also integrate film as much as I can in my courses. Probably my personal favorite is the Argentine film Hombre mirando al sudeste (Man Facing Southeast), a somewhat existentialist critique of the alienation of contemporary society as experienced by the messianic protagonist, who claims to be a holographic visitor from outer space. Other films that I would recommend from Latin America are:

• Gregory Nava's El Norte (The North), which depicts the repression suffered by indigenous peoples in Guatemala during the 1980s and the challenges they face as they make their way to the promised land (a.k.a. the United States) and try to make a new life for themselves here.
• John Sayles's Hombres armados (Men With Guns), which protrays in somewhat allegorical fashion the political violence in Latin America and its impact on the innocent and impoverished civilian population.
• Luis Puenzo's La historia oficial (The Official Story), a moving portrayal of Argentina's Dirty War during the late 1970s and early 1980s, as seen through the eyes of a high school history teacher who slowly becomes aware of the "unofficial story" of what is happening in her country and of her own unwitting complicity in the injustice.
• Tomás Gutiérrez Alea's Fresa y chocolate (Strawberry and Chocolate), a historical film that, through the friendship that develops between a gay intellectual and a young communist militant, critiques the discrimination and repression that homosexuals suffered during the late 1970s in Cuba.
• José Luis Cuerda's La lengua de las mariposas (translated as Butterfly, although literally it means The Butterfly's Tongue), a touching tale set at the beginning of the Spanish Civil War which examines the relationship between the Galician village's aging schoolmaster and a sensitive young boy as well as the impact of the war on Spanish society.
• Pedro Almodóvar's Hable con ella (Talk With Her), a film in which Almodóvar creates highly idiosyncratic characters and unlikely situations to treat perennial themes such as love and solitude, and yet again artfully engages his viewers and seduces them into discovering the shared humanity of his bizarre protagonists.

If you would like to explore some online resources on Hispanic films, I would recommend the following websites:

• Internet Movie Data Base
• Buscacine - links with web sites on film in Spanish
• LANIC: Cinema in Latin America - a wealth of resources and links
• Latin American Video Archives - the place to locate and purchase Latin American films and videos