AUSTERITY MEASURES, part 4; or, PAGAN SPAIN, part 3; or, HOW (TO) CHRISTOPHER GOT HIS GROOVE BACK…ONCE AGAIN

no more eta violence. that was yesterday’s big official news, and today’s diario de sevilla ran a political cartoon that featured a hooded caricature of an eta representative on a small deserted island throwing his gun into the ocean and reflecting that his surrender of his weapon was better than suicide. and what sage, sage advice for all of us, although there’s still much work to be done for peace as all of the papers and television news programs have recognized. last night, at the party, the party to which, incidentally, we wouldn’t have been extended an invitation had it not been for an acquaintance from the basque country, there wasn’t any talk of terrorism, but had there been it would surely have been about the various sevillanos lost to the violence and not about its implications for the legitimacy of the central government’s control of the various autonomous communities of spain. or so we can assume if my conversation with maría, a high school friend of the host’s, was of any significance. maría was a native and had spent some time in japan, so i remarked to her what i’d been thinking for a while about the similarities between the dispositions of the people of sevilla and the ones of kyoto. she didn’t disagree when i said that i respected the strong prides that both peoples held for their cities, not the most cosmopolitan or contemporarily savvy in their respective countries, but both of them their historic capitals and undeniable centers of certain “native” cultural traditions. i didn’t go on to voice my suspicion that those strong senses of pride were what had made the peoples of both cities so stubbornly insular, but maría supplied that point for me and (probably just for gracious sake of the conversation) warned me that i might not be so enamored of the local color after it had had a chance to put me at its disadvantage. and then there was talk of the church, which, with the top of the basilica just a block away and easily visible from the roof of the house where the party was being held, was probably inevitable in a conversation about basic sevillian values. just a day earlier a friend had responded to my challenge that i had no interest in getting married but that if i were to make a play for marriage i would insist on doing so in front of the virgin by saying that she had no plans to be married but that if she were she too would insist on having her wedding in a church because she believed more in god than she did in zapatero. touché. maría, for her part, didn’t think much either way, but assured me that even if the church (as it were at large) hadn’t found many official parts to play for homosexuals that for the most part spain in general and sevilla in particular didn’t bother to make distinctions because the tenacity of the church on both scales was more a point of the stubbornness of a folkloric tradition than a matter of dogma. (the pope might have something to say, but as for the virgin, as far as she was concerned you were a friend.) and so, appropriately, i left the party for a flamenco show (if ever there were a more fitting metaphor for the pageantry of the andalucian church…) at which i finally made acquaintance with lakshmi, whose workshops i hadn’t been able to take in portland but who easily offered up that she was doing her best to go back to give more. and if i can be permitted the sidebar i’ll say that i learned last night that there are in fact people in the world so beautiful that you can recognize them by reputation. she introduced me to her friend, an angolan woman who lived in portugal and in town visiting for the weekend, and maybe it was my familiarity with the two of them that launched the cavalcade, but for the rest of the night i was the uncomfortable beneficiary of more than my share of the venue’s female attention. a miraculous attempt at evangelical conversion? if so, then the holy spirit’s cupid’s arrow went astray. i could have named it a dozen better marks. but i’ll take it nonetheless. it’s a funny kind of stubbornness, but I’m throwing down my arms. it’s better than suicide, and we do know, those of us who know her, that the virgin hates that. and if not the rest of them, at least i can be a friend of mary’s.

PAGAN SPAIN, part 2

on saturdays, come mid-afternoon, the streets outside of the historic churches of the city overflow with wedding guests, the men dressed smartly in lightweight grey and blue woolen suits (this summer is poised to continue well into november) and the women, they’re dressed of course, but these weddings are much less about their dresses and their shoes (in which they do miraculously -- glory be! -- manage not to have to hobble over the cobblestones) as about their hats. they’re really, REALLY something. and the trails of them through the center of the city come mid-afternoon on any given saturday will almost invariably lead you to a set of studded doors in front of which a bride waits patiently with her father while, inside, a vaulted hall full of guests waits, turned towards the doors, less in expectation of the beginning of the familiar wedding march than in anticipation of the procession of latecomer hats that have yet to make their formal debuts in front of the virgin. accustomed to the ceremonial lack of ceremony (as such), some dozens of the guests mill under the umbrellas on the patios of the nearby bars even as the bride waits.

and such was the case at the church of san juan bautista (de palma is apparently his mor vulgar moniker) yesterday afternoon, where at half past noon a young wife to be waited patiently (her father probably wanting to be with his brothers and cousins at the bar across the street) for her friends or their wives or girlfriends to make their plays to show her up in front of the crowd. but at eleven o’clock mass this morning, the same grand church was occupied by only twenty or so of the devoted, at least a quarter of which were elderly and enfeebled and waited of their own volition, unacknowledged, to go to the end of the communion line so that they’d need to spend less time on their canes. there were neither a processional nor a recessional of the priest -- he had no attendants to escort him in any case -- and the luster of the church’s obvious historical and art historical importance was obscured by the motion of the four sputtering wall mounted oscillating fans that protruded from the below the red velvet that covered the top halves of the pillars located closest to the apse.

as soon as the mass was finished (and after the priest had retreated backstage and cut the brighter of the lights that had lit the altar), a crowd rushed in to take pictures of the statue of our father jesus del silencio (located in the alcove to the left of the altar, the right hand of the cross), have their pictures taken with the virgin and her attendant saint john and then to line up at the back of the church to be shown into the reliquary by the male parishioner who had so wholeheartedly appealed the devotions to the faithful few twenty minutes before. it’s difficult not to marvel only at the brilliance of the art in the church of san juan bautista in sevilla, and i was personally rapt by the statues of the two angels that guarded the stairs to the apse, symmetrically suspended by no apparent system of suspension as they themselves held pendant two giant lanterns -- the only two lighting fixtures in the church not to have been converted to electric. and those elderly who had struggled through the communion rite were probably the most disserviced by the catholic hierarchy of all of those who stood in line for the sacrament. but even so, as it was, caught between those wedding hats and the gaggles of tourists, i couldn’t help but feel for the parish of san juan bautista. even for all of the gold (and the apse of the church is glutted with it), i couldn’t help but pity the poor, meek catholic church. but then also to wonder, if by some cosmically beatific irony, it might not, after all, end up inheriting the world.

PAGAN SPAIN

sometimes the smoke turns out to have been coming from a chestnut roaster’s cart, which was the case the other night with the smoke cloud that was hovering below the tenting at the entrance to the pedestrian shopping promenade that begins at the zara store nearest el corte ingles. but sometimes the smoke isn’t floating the smell of charred chestnuts (which don’t seem to have a season here), but instead is carrying the unmistakable fragrance of frankincense, which was the case with the cloud that led me onto the crowd that filled the one narrow intersection on calle regina between the plaza mayor and the church of san juan de palma. and the smoke cloud was just a prelude to the chanting and the clanging of the baubles on top of the staffs that her attendants pounded against the ground to announce the resumption of the virgin’s procession through the intersection atop her seriously ornately gilded palanquin. i can’t say to which church the image belonged, but, probably, neither could most of the other people who had stumbled across the procession and were doing their best to snap photos of the image as she moved through the smoke. and for the smoke, it was difficult to tell if our lady of last night was decorated, under her outsized and resplendent crown, with the crystalline tears that appear on the faces of the virgins in the photographs advertising special viewings or the faded ones that decorate walls of the older cervecerias (or of any older retail establishment for that matter). the virgin passed, and the crowd closed around her attendants behind her. once before, i’d happened upon the carrying of the virgin de la esperanza (the second most celebrated in the city after the virgin de la macarena) back into the santa ana church in triana as a saturday night was turning into an early sunday morning. i’d no better idea of what feast (or whatever other event) she’d been brought out to celebrate that night than i did in regards to the virgin whose path i crossed on my way up calle regina towards home. but no bother. those things are better left to the krewes of parishioners who enjoy the image’s patronage. and they likely prefer it that way -- like those bearers of the portable shinto shrines that carry whichever of those deities through the crowds during festivals in japan -- to be the sole protectors of the gallant and dazzling rites that every so often take their virgin to the streets. i didn’t buy that copy of richard wright’s pagan spain when it was available at powell’s because it had been so severely marked up, and i never found another one. but i think i’ve gotten the gist of it by showing up. and it’s nice to be home.

AUSTERITY MEASURES, part 3

it seemed possible to easily quit the daily caffeine habit that i'd resumed here after a year and a half of abstinence and then just as much time on a more psychologically and metabolically manageable routine of two cups of coffee on each of three days a week. what the coffee in the pacific northwest had done to my nervous and endocrine systems over years couldn't possibly have been replicated by a month of daily single americanos outside the land of narcotic quality microroasts, could it? well, something happened. and after deciding yesterday to tighten my belt -- or for deciding that i should lower my profile in the cafes for the week, one of the two -- there's been hardly an unobligated hour that i haven't spent asleep. i'd have liked to replace my americanos (even if they should only be replaced temporarily) with some of the american beer that i found in the newly opened import bottle shop at 32ac calle jesus del gran poder (i stumbled into the grand opening reception after a wonderfully caffeinated afternoon walk), but paying twenty euro for a six pack of sierra nevada would hardly let me hide behind my belt tightening excuse. and so i've slept. run and slept and slept. and been told that i look tired when the obligated hours have come around. and with no hoppy consolation from the old country (although i definitely don't need any help getting to sleep). it would, however, have been some consolation. instead, all i have is my 750 gram tub of chocolate hazelnut spread, purchased last night, almost all gone, eaten in those short bursts of momentary motivation between naps, (coffee stirring) spoonful by spoonful. and, of course, off brand.

UN PASEO POR EL BRONX

it was actually on a morning run that i found all of the places that i later revisited in order to spend more to spend more time investigating them (and photojournalizing for the backhanded appeasement of some relations back in the old country) early this afternoon. and early this afternoon it was already too hot and too sunny (yes, portland, those are things) to really enjoy the walk. but i did get inside that cavernous shell of an abandoned edifice that stands -- not entirely bricked up, but almost -- just north of the macarena on the opposite side of the road that follows the western bank of the river through the city. it's full of trash. and lizards. but there was at least one man in there today who seemed to be living in the "room" with the tree in it at the northern end of the smaller of the two connected buildings. aside from rubble (i'll admit to having been a bit scared because i couldn't tell if what was left of the ceiling had done all of the falling it was going to do), most of the trash -- mattresses and plush toys and gutted home electronics -- looked like leftovers from previous squatters. on the old map i checked later in the day, the lines running away from the spot of what were now those ruins seemed to imply that they had once been a train station. on that map, there were also still train lines running away from the plaza de armas, which was replaced as sevilla's main train station after the completion of santa justa station, which was built, along with the the expansion to the airport, for the expected increase in visitors to the city for the celebration of the quincentennial of spain's opening of the americas to european exploration. i'd decided to run further in that direction that i ever had before because i'd spied the steeple of what i assumed to be an older church in the distance (and historic, monumental architecture isn't what you expect to see in el bronx). later, when i took more time to try to find access onto the grounds, i thought i'd seen a sun faded sign describing the rehabilitation of the monastery of some or another saint del buenavista; but the map said it was a cemetery, which i suppose wouldn't keep the building with the steeple from being a church or a monastery, but there was a security patrol along the outer wall with the only apparent access points to the building when i was back on my walk in the early afternoon, and i thought it better to do any more poking around at an odder hour. plus, it was still almost half of my walk to get back to that giant egg. i'd nearly laughed out loud when i'd first seen it earlier in the morning, and seeing it appear over the horizon was even more unexpected than the steeple. the probably hundred foot and hollowed out spheroid protects a huge statue of christopher columbus, who five-hundred and nineteen years ago came to sevilla to secure funds and three ships for his journey around the world to india from the monarchs of a recently united proto-spain (but only the name of the santa maria -- and the strange date of 12/X/1492 -- appear on the egg). and in the end, for the increasing intensity of the sun and the waning of my interest with the depletion of my water, i didn't end up walking all of the way back to it. of that, i didn't really need pictures. but the sevillian celebrations of 1492 were much more successful than the ones held in sevilla's sister city of columbus, ohio, u.s.a., and the continuing presence of the giant egg is testament to that, even if the central expedition site for the celebrations (located on the opposite side of the river and closer to the center of town) are now more scarcely frequented than even those ruins with their one remianing squatter. strangely, spain didn't get the day off today. there are certainly more publicly recognized religious holidays, but columbus day is not celebrated here. wednesday, however, is armed services day, and i've been told that absolutely nothing will be open. nothing other than ikea, that is, which in perfect american form is where (i've been told) the entire city of sevilla will be that day.

that's why we're going early. greetings from the new world.

AUSTERITY MEASURES, part 2

juan jose padillo got himself gored in the face yesterday after popping two banderillas into the back of a bull named marques during a fight between the two in zaragoza. i hadn't heard of the man before yesterday evening when the news of his goring topped all of the news bulletins: "Television images showed the moment when the bull’s left horn ripped into Juan Jose Padilla’s lower jaw to emerge beside his protruding eyeball." a picture of the same occupied the entire front page of this morning's diario de sevilla, and even for the closeness of the zoom, it was difficult to tell the tip of the protruding horn from the white bulge of the eye that it was pushing out of padilla's face. so the stage was set for a big sports news sunday, until i realized from checking the printed soccer stats that the game i'd seen on television yesterday evening between bulletins in which sevilla won two to one over barcelona had been a recording. oh well. i'm not taking all of the responsibility for the error, because, after all, i just don't work here. and that goring is more than enough to compete with this morning's cyclocross spectacle back in the old country, which could only triumph for sensationality if someone there were to in fact get gored. are unicorns still a thing? no. never mind. i don't care. here i am wasting time that i could be using to check on the success of padillo's surgery. and in deference to his courage and sacrifice, i won't buy el país like i'd planned, even if i've been told that the sunday culture supplement is a must have for my look this season. and who has the five (six?) euro to give to frivolity at a time like this. una. grande. viva. in solidarity, and out of battery.

AUSTERITY MEASURES

thanks to the group of twenty year old italian girls who stopped me on the street at two-thirty in the morning to ask me directions, with special kudos to the one of them who happily struggled with me in halting spanish back and forth to finally arrive at the mutual understanding that she and her friends were looking for a place on calle adriano and that i did not know where that was. her dress probably wasn't prada, but it's designer had definitely noticed all the brightly colored stripes in the 2011 spring collection. and then taken them once by mondrian and then by warhol. that's the kind of thing the kids are thinking these days between the bars. what sovereign debt crisis? we've got star power. it was the confidence inspired by that interaction that had me actually offering suggestions two hours later when a man from an early middle aged trio asked me where they should go for one more drink. luckily, it wasn't quite enough for me to grab the lapels of the man who screamed what i thought was a compliment in my face a bit later and toss him out of my way. although it felt like i should have as soon as i was home. the police were busy clearing out the alameda and breaking up the fight behind the fish market.