LO LEISTE?; or, ME TOO, ME TOO; or, DE LA REVUELTA AL UGLY AMERICAN

that i had been to every synagogue in spain, well, that's what i was thinking (albeit fleetingly) that i should have mentioned in regards to my visit to toledo, but i had all but forgotten the fact myself by the time i had gotten back to the city and installed myself in front of the television news to begin what would end up as my writing something about the domus aurea. (and, undeniably, the two bottles of la cibeles ipa only helped to reinforce a particular picture of the day trip, one that hadn't, admittedly, had so much to do with medieval history.) then, by the morning -- which is to say the beginning of the next day, which for me began in the early afternoon -- as soon as i saw the two of them on their fixed gears in their not surprisingly familiar yachtwear, the fact of the synagogues, if remembered, was now completely irrelevant. it had been in toledo at la malquerida where i had read the article, but the handmade frames themselves came from madrid, and the address for the shop was given as noviciado number nine: closed at five-thirty when i woke up from my nap in the new bed in the new room at the new hotel where i now had my things. but not far -- and not unsurprisingly -- a little café on la palma with a bike and a cog on its sign. full, however, (and but of course)...probably for some kind of sunday evening [modish pastime] skill-share group. but there was always diurno. and although that was full too (all the more regrettably because they were all so handsome), i knew the coffee well enough to know that it was good enough to take to go. and i took my coffee to that plaza with the roommates hotel in it that isn't the plaza de chueca but that i thought was the plaza de chueca until that very evening when i took my americano from diurno there to try to read. but instead of reading i thought that people here must put so much milk and sugar in their coffee because they haven't had really decent coffee like they serve at diurno; and i was really thinking that the coffee at diurno couldn't be beat (at least in madrid) until i went back to try that other place again. and then, walking back east on la palma (because toma café closes at eight-thrity and i'd just barely made it), i thought about how long it had been since i'd had a really decent coffee like that second americano. but get this: there's seriously a fixed gear over the counter. and i couldn't remember when i saw it if the italian espresso machine was of any variety that joel had ever mentioned, but i do remember thinking that someone involved in the conception of toma must have only had a couple of degrees of separation from courier. that, however, could have just been the giddy of the caffeine. i should have known, though, when i saw those two struggling on their fixies in their yachtwear that something was afoot in malasaña -- and that the something was nothing new. then why so charmed? that's definitely what i was thinking later after i was sitting behind the bar at tipos infames (having finished the nut brown from la cibeles and then having made the regrettable decision to retry something from brabante). sure, the bar was also a bookstore and something of the sort was to be expected, but i couldn't help but wonder if the place hadn't internalized too much "portlandia" when the middle aged woman who had brought the two bearded employees those artesanal sausages broke out of a short silence with, "lo leiste? el ultimo de...?" but why, then, so charmed? i wondered. i did. not that i didn't enjoy it (and more than a little), and not that i really wasn't wondering anymore after i spotted another bookstore with a bar in it just a few streets away. i would have to come back. unfortunately, i couldn't find it again on my way to bed from la realidad. it would have been too late at that point anyway, but it would have been nice to have known before going to sleep. with that exhibit on the revolt of the postmodern on the agenda for the morning (and the meeting with the professor for the afternoon), it would have been nice to have known so as not to have had to spend the time in the search. but the next day, after the exhibit and the professor and a visit to the bicycle shop (which was open at six-thirty on a monday), i might as well have dreamed the place up. i could have gone back to toma, but they'd seen me once in the morning already, and i'd had enough of the rehash of the bike culture already for the day: even if no one had told the guys on noviciado how to make a very interesting frame, they had learned that no one in a respectable bike shop should talk to anyone he doesn't recognize that just comes in off the street. portland had taught them well too. (but, i was essentially in uniform...couldn't they tell?) anyway, maybe it wasn't not that cool to do things in a way that you knew they should be done just because you'd seen them come into fashion three years earlier somewhere else. (and it's probably not cool to say that in so many words, either.) or, maybe, coffee, beer and bicycles just aren't really that cool. i probably should have just planted myself in a sauna for the night. but i went on looking, of course, with the proud knowledge that in the end i could just write about an interesting bookstore with a bar in it that i made up in a dream. luckily, i went to toma again the next morning, because after not finding the place the night before i found a business card at toma, and it wasn't from the place but it was at least from a place on a nearby street. and so, luckily, i found it. and luckily, as the man going around to the different bookstores that would be participating in some sort of international day of the book event was talking to the italian owner/operator about the decal he was about to put up on the windowed door, i saw the book. for a place called italiana, the coffee wasn't that great. but that copy of "la historia de mi pureza" at least gave me the opportunity to ask the italian (in spanish) if he had read that book by his countryman. coffee, beer and bicycles might not, in fact, be that cool. but here, a genuine opportunity to win with a well placed "me too." i probably should have wasted my time talking about the synagogues. i've been to all of them.