BUYING GUIDE: THE PERFECTLY USELESS SOUVENIR

walking home, we're certain of it -- although it's true that, in fact, we certainly haven't been here before. but "there's spring in the air; they're sweeping the streets." "i end up buying a coded, that is, completely useless, souvenir." and "how horrible it is when crucial moments in our lives can only be expressed in words so banal that they in turn make the moments themselves banal." i'm glad it's over, but i'm even gladder that i didn't miss the fireworks.

FERIA APOCALYPSE; or, HOW TO BE PART OF THE PROBLEM

my neighbor saw one, a feria zombie, or, rather, he heard something lumbering up the marble stairs at eight-thirty in the morning and switched on the light in the stairway just in time to catch the thing turning out onto the second floor in yesterday's suit. they're afraid of the light, because it's the light that betrays the shoes, the pant legs and the ruffles covered in horseshit and dust, that yesterday's suit was yesterday's suit yesterday, too. and so the neighbor sees the zombie cringe as it lumbers over to the next flight of stairs over yesterday's blisters. the zombies have a disease, and the disease is called sevillanas. and the night of the lighting of the portada they follow the smell of yesterday's fish until they can see the first of the three hundred thousand bulbs in the distance and then crush against each other to follow the flow of the hunger through the streets of los remedios to the fairgrounds. two million mad maxes lumbering to the thunderdome to battle as many partners as possible before they crowd back into buses and taxis -- or try to lumber themselves home on foot -- before the ugly light of the morning. and every morning, the zombies swear it off. and every night the hunger returns stronger. and every afternoon another soiled shirt and two million preliminary battles in the mirror, driven by the hunger, another frantic tear through closets and accessory drawers to try to make yesterday's dresses and suits look new again. by the fourth day, the post will not come, and the dry cleaners won't open. it's the zombies on their own, for themselves, in the thunderdome. and it doesn't hurt (although it doesn't necessarily help, either) that the feria is all of the battlers' collective wedding, prom and bar mitzvah all at once. the hunger for the celebration feeds itself. and you might groan, but then, over the groans of all of the zombies, you hear one of them speak: "i've gotta get home. i'm dying. and i really need to see how many people liked my picture on facebook."

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.

DOMUS AUREA

a decent spanish india pale ale. "fresh, clear, and with a distinct flavor of aromatic hops [especially simcoe and amarillo]." domus, the beer of toledo. but we're not in ohio anymore. and the ohioans (not to mention the portalnders) might not appreciate it much, because the domus aurea isn't especially bitter or full bodied, but damn if it isn't nice to taste and breath those those aromatic hops again. as nero put it when he dedicated his domus aurea on palatine hill: at last i can begin to live like a human being. and it's not necessary to climb the entire hill of the old city of toledo to find an aurea (or a regina or a summa), because the city is proud of its local product and most of its bars have a line of domus bottles displayed in front of their taps. but, with the promise of an aurea around nearly every corner, i wasn't put out to keep walking up and down all the cobbled staircases in the morning rain thinking about how great a compliment the beer of toledo would be to a cyclocross roubaix through the alleys of the city. unfortunately, as much as the spanish might enjoy an early drink, the people of castilla and la mancha don't apparently seem to appreciate a super hoppy, stronger than average breakfast on a rainy weekend morning. i was definitely the malquerido at la malquerida when i ordered my first aurea at ten and then lingered over it as the breakfast crowd came and went. oh well. the city only had to put up with me for a day, and anyway, by the lunch hour the servers at the cervecería mayor were more than happy to let me linger at the bar while the dining room ate. it's also next to the cathedral. (there's some historical stuff in the city, too.) and it's worth the trip, even if you can get yourself an aurea elsewhere. and it was even a little sad to leave without having had the chance to visit the brewery -- although proprietary taprooms seem a long way from catching on, and the domus brewery is only open to the public on thursdays and fridays from six to...seven. but there's still aurea to be had in the capital, and...no...but it's true. the brewery named for the cibeles fountain makes an ipa too. and, oh my, an imperial... chueca is going to be missing its mayoress tonight. and this was supposed to have said something else. cheers.

ME CUESTA DEL SOL; or, TO THE LIGHTHOUSE, part 2.5

the province of málaga: birthplace of pablo picasso and home to the british. if england had won modern day orlando from the spanish and had the treaty brokered by german lawyers, the result would look something like the costa del sol. but if foreign investment in the hospitality industry on the mediterranean coast of spain has gone too far, well, it's also only gone so far. if you go to the irish pub next to the restaurant that serves all day english breakfasts and you're not obviously from the united kingdom, you might as well be spanish. and you realize the overall effect: when the hairdresser buzzing me head so that it can burn on the beach with the rest of my body asks me if i live here, it's not because i've been conversing with her in spanish but because my spanish is probably bad. but it could be worse. the tanorexic women that come in to ask about appointments don't even make an effort (and probably have no idea of the problems that their stylist is having with the license for her salon). so there's nothing else to do except for to buy the tiniest swimsuit possible at the shopping mall in marbella and wear it with sunglasses to buy beer at the supermarket across from the irish pub. then it's off to the beach, even in the wind, even under the clouds, because the closer you are to the water the less you have to see of what's happening inland. (princess diana, by the way, has her own virgin, the image of which is set above the entrance to the princess' namesake park in miraflores.) but to the northeast, a lighthouse, and because the wind and the cold -- and the alcohol (let's admit it) -- make it difficult to sit tight for more than a few hours without wanting to move (and swimming in the cold april mediterranean is reserved for the end of the day when there's nothing left to do but leave the beach and shower), just because it's there, i try to walk to the lighthouse. and it's too far. i think i get close on that first and only try, but in the rental on the way back to the station three days later it's obvious that i would have never gone all the way. (there was nothing on the beach during those few days in anglo-germanic disneyland that would have made me go all the way.) but there was a sign, and i wanted to take it as one. "el faro," it says. "cambio de sentido." and it isn't right to take it in that, er, sense...but that's what you do when you're at a loss. lost, maybe. and the lighthouse in faro and the one at the edge of the bridge to triana feel immediately closer although i know that they're worlds away in portugal and in spain. then it's just strange to be speeding past the hilltop castles overlooking the white villages of the southern spanish countryside, but at least the ave lets you slow down enough to appreciate the sun coming through the low hanging clouds over the hills between the city and toledo. but it's only later --with the old man -- that i laugh at the strange poetic symmetry of the wind turbines on the hills behind the castle hills. i'm not opposed, but he's decided that the the best way not to worry about having to constantly piss is to keep buying beers along the way so that he can use the bathroom at the bars where we buy them... along the way to the plaza de españa where, yes, i do think that we should take a picture of the statue of don quijote.

DAMNED IF YOU DO, DAMNED IF I WON'T

the big news this morning was that the catholic church still isn't so down with the gays -- or at least the bishop of alcalá isn't. (and at least the spanish broadcast authority is protesting his good friday homily.) in other news (at least the news running on the television at the station cafeteria), rising gas prices and a spike in traffic accidents at the end of the easter weekend, especially near the beach. so of course we rented a car. but it was the train that took us away from the surreality of all of the pomegranates -- lining the streets, and on the street signs, and all over that fountain on the paseo de violón. that professor of geopolitics might have had something to say about the oil situation as it was reported on the television at the station (and probably something about the bishop of alcalá as well), but he was staying in the city until the afternoon. no class for him the day after easter, although, as he pointed out while buying torrijas for his parents on sunday morning, the holiday wasn't public nationwide. the dirty sugar factory on the vega does not smell sweet, but it has had the fortune (even as it might have been the undoing of the fortune of the garcia lorcas) of being rescued from ruin and converted into art and living spaces. the crumbling olive oil factory in bobadilla hasn't been so fortunate. and it smells like fish. that second coffee in the cafeteria across from the station didn't make taking the car ride any easier. but where we were going the train don't go. ask the bishop of alcalá.

BIG THREE; or, GAYS IN SPACE

you are not a bad writer, or a bad photographer. there are some things that just elude words or resist being captured in photos. it doesn’t matter if people have written the descriptions or have the pictures to show. it doesn’t matter if you have written the description or have been shown the pictures. it’s possible, sure, that the problem is just the weight of the unwritten words piling up or that it was just something with your camera lens or with the flash. (sometimes.) but like those long vistas of the ocean or of the mountains that don’t even manage to convey that the ocean or the mountains are something large -- let alone spectacular or breathtaking -- no matter how much the experience of seeing the esperanza move off of calle pureza onto the bridge of triana might move you, don’t try to take a picture -- not even just of the heartwarming spectacle of the people filling the altozano at three in the morning -- because it won’t seem to manage.

the same will go for trying to describe the silent procession of jesus del gran poder across reyes catolicos and down the narrow street next to the burger king. your stomach full of churros and chocolate, you hear an intersection of seville in silence, and the superb irony of that portuguese remarking that this is the only time you’ll hear the spanish shut up is impossible to put into words. still, and even if the virgin of the macarena and the esperanza of triana have long eclipsed the christ in the story of the passion on the early morning streets of good friday in seville, most of the people are shut up as he passes. “the body of christ incarnate in the heart of the most beautiful city in the world.” you can say things like that when you’re an announcer for giralda tv and after several earlier processions have been cancelled due to rain and you’re waiting, as he was for the weather reports at ten and eleven, to find out if the big three might not make their penitence either. repeating that, however, will just make you sound like driveling trash.

mercury certainly took its sweet time coming back around to the side of reason, but by midnight on thursday the god that flies had finally deferred to the men crawling the earth under the shrines, and the skies were clear. triana wouldn’t have to wait another year.

they said, too, that the macarena was beautiful, that the songs they sang when she came out of the basilica at three and the ones they sang when she went back in almost twelve hours later sounded truly inspired, and that’s disappointing because you know that their descriptions are pale shades of the reality of what you missed. but you can’t see both the macarena and the esperanza leaving at the same time, and by the time the macarena was making her way back home, it was time to do the same. by the time the cab had dropped the group at the bottom of the macarena around six, the front of some other procession was already blocking the way to la campana, and who knew how long would have been the long way around to seeing the procession from the iglesia de los gitanos.

at least the way to the disco was still open -- and the disco too -- and there was just enough time left before the lights came on in the back. by the time, however, that the lights had been on for an hour outside it was definitely time to leave. lucky, too, that it was just before the front of the procession of the macarena blocked feria (although it was still hours before the virgin herself would pass). it’s not worth going to the trouble of trying to describe.

i was asleep when she finally made it home, but i doubt i could have made it very close to the basilica had i woken up even an hour earlier. and when i tried to show the ones who saw her how my night had been, somehow the esperanza and the gran poder had disappeared from all of my pictures and i was left sharing a camera full of the men in the crowd. but nothing doing. regrets are almost as worthless as explanations. the big three had stumbled back inside, and easter was over in seville. hope you got laid.

A HORSE THAT FLIES

ha. made you look. you know who you are. and you're like, "have you ever seen a flying horse? ...you don't even know the song." but you know what i have seen? a flying god. a god that flies. with his winged sandals and his winged staff and his winged cap -- looking much better than the flat footed statue of neptune above the fountain one courtyard over. and the fountain with which the other two form a nearly equilateral triangle is the one that's the last one in spain that plays music by means of a hydraulic organ. and one of only three in europe. it doesn't, however, play on the hour as the placard advertises. and today the peacocks from the english garden might get lost in the maze. and although the abundance of orange blossoms and lilacs has been too much for any spell of rain to completely overcome, it seems not quite completely possible to lose yourself in the fragrances of the gardens in april if the clouds don't stay in one place. it's all a bit confusing. but i can blame the god that flies. and you (all) can shut up, because if we're putting up with so much superstition this week then it might as well be mine. then again, there's also the science, but the thing is that right now the science is off. and that's what sticks the procession in the middle of the bridge in the rain. and that's what causes your server to bring you one too many plates of honeyed short ribs and two too many of that -- granted -- really amazing thing that they do with the poached egg and the mushroom bizcocho. lost? ride your flying horse there. the point is that i understand. i understand that nothing makes sense, and so the least that you can do is to understand my inability to understand the thing with the flying horse.

worry, however, not. two more days and the god flies out of retrograde. and yes, that's a word. no, not retrocession, which -- yes -- is another word, but they have something different to do with the same thing. communication, logic, technology...all of it flown out the window. not following? that's the point!!

but worry not. two more days and he flies right, just in time for the processions on holy thursday. we can evaluate them then with an even temper and a cool head, even if all those heads under the hoods might not be so cool. for the first day out of the quagmire and worth predicting, they're predicting sun.