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Roberto Ignacio Díaz

@robertissimus.bsky.social

870 followers 610 following 400 posts

Professor of Spanish and Comparative Literature at USC | Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. | Author of “Latin America and the Transports of Opera” | Platonic Cyclist, Public Transit Rider | 🇨🇺🇺🇸🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🇬🇱🇩🇰🇵🇦🇨🇦🇲🇽🇵🇸🇺🇦🇪🇺

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 10h

Glad to see we’re united against the “compact.” For one, I love USC’s cosmopolitanism. I’m proud to have directed dissertations by students from Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S., and every term I love having awesome students from China, India, and many other places. Fight on!

Faculty called for USC to ‘promptly reject’ Trump compact - Daily Trojan

The Academic Senate called a special meeting Monday for faculty to provide input on the demands.

dailytrojan.com

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 2d

The National Gallery of Art was open only until yesterday at 5:00 p.m. Stopped by to say goodbye to these lofty spaces that will remain out of bounds for the duration of the shutdown.

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 14d

Thank you. This is a wonderful poem.

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 15d

David Adjaye on his design for the Smithsonian Museum of African American History and Culture, interview with Julian Rose, “Building Culture” (Princeton Architectural Press, 2024), p. 53.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 15d

“I intentionally layered different kinds of architectural references […] — materials that mirror the Washington Monument, a facade motif that draws from Black ironworkers of the American South, a form derived from Yoruban art — to show how African influences are fundamental to America.”

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 19d

What can I say?

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 20d

Ok, I only learned this word recently, but it does exist.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 23d

It’s still an imaginary book, but if it existed, I would call it “Aalto’s Umbrella”!

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 24d

A novel about an umbrella born at the Rose Cafe, Venice, c. 1995. She was so big that she never traveled, but at times she sheltered her owner around L.A. She now lives in Washington, D.C., but things are so awful she’s decided not to leave the Alvar Aalto stand where she has been placed. It’s home.

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · 25d

It rained a lot the other day, so now the babbling brook in my local woods is growing. Nature, the gentlest mother.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Sep 7

Got a little lost in Soapstone Valley Park — the woods right across from my building — but found a trail that ended right by the Ann and Donald Brown House, Neutra’s sole design in D.C. If California were its own republic (sigh!), this would be its ambassador’s residence.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Sep 7

Pleased to say that I have now posted 5000 images on Instagram. It’s the best thing I’ve ever done: an autobiography of sorts but also a record, I hope, of what Julio Cortázar called “la maravillosa riqueza planetaria” — the wonderful things our world contains.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 30

Extraño al menos un poquito los coyotes con los que solía topar en Los Ángeles — siempre una explosión metafórica.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 29

Argh.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 29

What?! The New York Times has definitely lost its good word list.

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 25

Saw five or six National Guardsmen sitting on a step by the sidewalk on Constitution Avenue by the National Gallery’s West Building. They looked bored. Inside, as cool as always, Desiderio da Settignano’s Christ Child does not approve of the President’s dismissive approach to, er, our Constitution.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 21

¡Viva el papel!

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 19

Sí; menos mal que ella lo entendía a él bien!

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 19

Y cómo era la vida de un teaching fellow en la segunda mitad del siglo XX.

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 19

I’m afraid it’s the carry-on culture. Nothing to do except wait.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 19

At the Peet’s on Montana and 14th in Santa Monica, enjoying (truly) a concoction termed Havana Cappuccino, defined as containing “sweet condensed milk and a cinnamon kick.” How does Havana, an impoverished city if there ever was one, remain alluring to capitalist imaginings after all these years?

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 16

My husband and I would visit art museums all the time. He found it funny that I’d always ask him what his favorite work in a room was. I loved the fact that he’d always buy postcards of the works he loved. This Woman with Green Hat — so lovely, so lonely — is for you, my Jim, wherever you may be.

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Aug 7

James, no question.

Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Jul 23

I knew there were trees across from my new building in D.C., but this feels a little like the forest primeval.

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Roberto Ignacio Díaz @robertissimus.bsky.social · Jul 21