Roberto Ignacio Díaz
@robertissimus.bsky.social
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 | 🇨🇺🇺🇸🏳️🌈🏳️⚧️🇬🇱🇩🇰🇵🇦🇨🇦🇲🇽🇵🇸🇺🇦🇪🇺
Quick daytrip to Brno — my last time there it was still Czechoslovakia — to see Mies’s Villa Tugendhat, my dream-home from now on. A Spanish-speaking visitor said it’s “demasiado minimalista,” which may be an oxymoron of sorts: too much of too little. Less is in fact less, and that’s surely good.
December 26, 2025 at 7:33 PM
Quick daytrip to Brno — my last time there it was still Czechoslovakia — to see Mies’s Villa Tugendhat, my dream-home from now on. A Spanish-speaking visitor said it’s “demasiado minimalista,” which may be an oxymoron of sorts: too much of too little. Less is in fact less, and that’s surely good.
Where’s Freud? Silence at Berggasse 19.
December 25, 2025 at 9:30 PM
Where’s Freud? Silence at Berggasse 19.
“Lift up your cell phones.” “We lift them up to the Lord.” As seen during midnight mass at Stephansdom, Vienna, Christmas 2025. #neveragain
December 25, 2025 at 1:14 PM
“Lift up your cell phones.” “We lift them up to the Lord.” As seen during midnight mass at Stephansdom, Vienna, Christmas 2025. #neveragain
What an outstanding collection at Vienna’s Weltmuseum. Came for a quick glimpse of “Montezuma’s headdress” — huge, gorgeous, poignant — but stayed for everything else, such objects linked to Martin Gusinde’s sojourns in Tierra del Fuego, including yet another headdress of a very different kind.
December 24, 2025 at 2:32 PM
What an outstanding collection at Vienna’s Weltmuseum. Came for a quick glimpse of “Montezuma’s headdress” — huge, gorgeous, poignant — but stayed for everything else, such objects linked to Martin Gusinde’s sojourns in Tierra del Fuego, including yet another headdress of a very different kind.
Call me childish, but as someone who spent over thirty years in California, I got a secret thrill when I saw this sign eclipsing huge St. Stephen’s basilica in Budapest on this chilly evening.
December 23, 2025 at 6:02 PM
Call me childish, but as someone who spent over thirty years in California, I got a secret thrill when I saw this sign eclipsing huge St. Stephen’s basilica in Budapest on this chilly evening.
Can’t think of anything in Vienna I like as much as the rooftop on Falkestraße 6 remodeled almost forty years ago by Coop Himmelb(l)au: an opulent building yields to deconstruction and looks richer than ever before — an architectural unconscious, if you will, signaling openness and renewal.
December 23, 2025 at 5:17 AM
Can’t think of anything in Vienna I like as much as the rooftop on Falkestraße 6 remodeled almost forty years ago by Coop Himmelb(l)au: an opulent building yields to deconstruction and looks richer than ever before — an architectural unconscious, if you will, signaling openness and renewal.
The woods by me — actually, closer to the Dutch embassy than my building, but what a celestial respite from brutal politics.
December 20, 2025 at 9:50 PM
The woods by me — actually, closer to the Dutch embassy than my building, but what a celestial respite from brutal politics.
Caminante, sí hay camino, pero es frío y resbaloso.
December 17, 2025 at 4:18 AM
Caminante, sí hay camino, pero es frío y resbaloso.
An icicle hangs from the eyeglasses in Gandhi’s monument in front of the Indian Embassy on this glacial day Washington, D.C. To me it looks like the sculpture is crying. Why shouldn’t it, really, in this hopeless world?
December 15, 2025 at 4:08 AM
An icicle hangs from the eyeglasses in Gandhi’s monument in front of the Indian Embassy on this glacial day Washington, D.C. To me it looks like the sculpture is crying. Why shouldn’t it, really, in this hopeless world?
Everyone loves a little Lam, including me.
December 12, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Everyone loves a little Lam, including me.
Of all the works by Lam in the impressive show at MoMA, what I’d take home if I could is this über-sad darkest “Annunciation” devoid of hope, as far as I can see. Or maybe it’s a super cheerful painting and I just can’t see it — or see.
December 11, 2025 at 3:15 AM
Of all the works by Lam in the impressive show at MoMA, what I’d take home if I could is this über-sad darkest “Annunciation” devoid of hope, as far as I can see. Or maybe it’s a super cheerful painting and I just can’t see it — or see.
Christ-Mies Is Coming.
December 9, 2025 at 11:27 PM
Christ-Mies Is Coming.
I can’t be the only one who feels unseen.
December 8, 2025 at 6:50 PM
I can’t be the only one who feels unseen.
Neutra in early winter; or, pleasures of snow in the District of Columbia.
December 6, 2025 at 3:50 PM
Neutra in early winter; or, pleasures of snow in the District of Columbia.
We loved you so, Frank Gehry!
December 6, 2025 at 6:46 AM
We loved you so, Frank Gehry!
I didn’t hear anything, and yes this tree did fall in my local woods. D.C., rainy wonderland.
December 3, 2025 at 3:04 PM
I didn’t hear anything, and yes this tree did fall in my local woods. D.C., rainy wonderland.
On this first Sunday of Advent, don’t say, “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Say instead, as our preacher did today, “Stay woke!”
November 30, 2025 at 8:34 PM
On this first Sunday of Advent, don’t say, “Keep awake therefore, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.” Say instead, as our preacher did today, “Stay woke!”
Il pleure dans mon cœur … Ce deuil est sans raison …
November 26, 2025 at 12:46 AM
Il pleure dans mon cœur … Ce deuil est sans raison …
Post-peak | Leafless | D.C. Woods.
November 21, 2025 at 3:34 AM
Post-peak | Leafless | D.C. Woods.
The Chardin at the Phillips Collection: “A Bowl of Plums” to nourish your eyes.
November 20, 2025 at 2:28 AM
The Chardin at the Phillips Collection: “A Bowl of Plums” to nourish your eyes.
The Mahatma on a cold November afternoon standing tall across from the Indian embassy. At least you know that you-know-who, even as he upends more than just a few things in D.C., cannot touch this noble monument.
November 14, 2025 at 12:25 AM
The Mahatma on a cold November afternoon standing tall across from the Indian embassy. At least you know that you-know-who, even as he upends more than just a few things in D.C., cannot touch this noble monument.
Mysteries of the District of Columbia. Under Connecticut Avenue; or, How Do You Get Up There From Down Here?
November 3, 2025 at 6:58 AM
Mysteries of the District of Columbia. Under Connecticut Avenue; or, How Do You Get Up There From Down Here?
Such a sumptuous fall season in this District of Columbia that maybe I’ll just have to call it Autumn.
October 29, 2025 at 11:30 PM
Such a sumptuous fall season in this District of Columbia that maybe I’ll just have to call it Autumn.
These folks are surely ante- and anti-diluvian.
October 27, 2025 at 10:04 PM
These folks are surely ante- and anti-diluvian.
Yesterday I toured “Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750,” a great show at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. My favorite piece was this hand-colored engraving of a rather abstract pineapple by Maria Sibylla Merian, who visited Surinam in 1699.
October 26, 2025 at 5:57 PM
Yesterday I toured “Women Artists from Antwerp to Amsterdam, 1600-1750,” a great show at the National Museum of Women in the Arts. My favorite piece was this hand-colored engraving of a rather abstract pineapple by Maria Sibylla Merian, who visited Surinam in 1699.