Late Night TV... Spanish style...

Toronto Interlude.

It's great to be back home. Barcelona is awesome but so is Toronto and I'm glad that I decided to take a week in between trips to see people and tie up loose ends before taking off for 5 months. Today was busy: wide awake at 4am because of the jet-lag, correcting some job letters for people, writing recommendations, trying to do some of my own writing... then renegotiating the mortgage, getting car insurance reduced while we're gone, putting the new camera on the home insurance... you know, fun stuff. Did manage to do the last tweaks on the Barcelona book manuscript before I hand that in again (because I took out a few images, I had to go through and change all of the figure references...).

When you're in Toronto you take the multiculturalism for granted but honestly, even being away for just a couple of weeks makes you forget just how diverse it is here... as I've mentioned to some of you, the City should totally put the following on the signs that greet you when you drive into town:

"Welcome to Toronto: The Most Multicultural City in the History of the World"




BCE Place atrium, Santiago Calatrava


ROM Detail (Duma's favourite building...)


The Bader Theatre at Victoria College

The Good Stuff.

Jamon ibérico de bellota. The pigs that this ham came from only ate acorns and heather.

Melts in your mouth (and it had better... porque cuesta un huevo...)

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IGCT also endorses... my lunch, brought to you by this very same caldo:


Rice with wild mushrooms and artichokes.

Pyrenees Part 2,

The next morning I slept in a little bit (after the rooster a few blocks away had woken me up first around 6 or so...). A dense fog had descended on Tremp and it was still lingering by the time I wandered down to the dining room, where I was confronted by some crazy Dutch cycling team all decked out in their gear already. There were also a couple of old ladies smoking while sipping coffee and one older and obnoxious Australian cyclist who was loudly "pour favor-ing" and "grassyass-ing" everyone who moved...but in a kind of ironic way... as if he were in a funpark or something... prick.

Júlia came to pick me up and we headed to a nearby town that had built itself up around some important salt mines. Unfortunately, the interpretation area was closed... as was the monastery... so we sat down and had a tallat and took in the sun (which had decided to come out) and the scenery. Then we walked along the river a bit before deciding to take a look at the monastery anyway. As it turns out, the lady in charge had appeared and she let us in.

Now, I´m not sure whether we went to visit another town at that point or just returned to Tremp and hung out at the same bar as the night before... In any event, Jordi was going to prepare us another amazing meal so I was certainly down with chilling for a bit as we waited... and hey, all the better if it's in a bar. J's mum came by after a little bit with her son and it was nice chatting while the nice smells emanated from the kitchen...

The meal was once again spectacular. First course: rice with local mushrooms (very dainty ones and not overpowering, but with a mouth-filling flavour) and some bits of ham; second course: incredibly tender and perfectly cooked steak with a morel sauce... definitely the best beef I've ever had in Spain and way up there with that bison at La Gamelle a couple of years ago and the sirloins we grilled for Bill and Berna's going away dinner...

No time for a siesta either, because a friend was waiting at a local museum to show us around... so off J and I went, and we were treated to a small but very cool display of modernista calendars and business display paraphenelia (it sounds weird but trust me, interesting stuff). On the other side of the building there was a display of original civil war posters courtesy of the local townspeople. There is something very moving about seeing those pieces first hand. I had only ever looked at them in books and online... to see them in their full size, creased and folded, perhaps, but the colours still vibrant... was something else.



Our guide then took us to the middle of this small town (cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme...) where I got to see four very, very cool installation museums: recreated spaces full of historical materials. There was an apothecary, a barber shop, a general store and a bar. Check out the spaces and some of the items:



The old drugs and such were pretty cool and then the following was pointed out to us:



Yeah, those are cocaine pills... : )

Next up was the barber shop. The chairs were perfectly broken in and very comfy... sitting there took me back to the time I went for my second shave down in La Ceiba in Honduras... the first one had gone well and felt great (and only cost a dollar) but the second one... not so much... I say this because the lady shaving me started to argue with a friend about a guy just as she was drawing the straight razor up my throat and over my chin. Well, her anger got the better of her steady hand and next thing you know, I see the friend's eyes get really big as I feel liquid streaming down my neck... yeah, she had cut me pretty good. Luckily, it being a cheap barbershop in northern Honduras in the mid-'90s, she had some newspaper on hand to blot the blood... When she threw on that green rubbing alcohol afterwards, I thought I was going to faint... Now I have a nice scar on my chin to remind me of the fun of being shaved by someone else...



But enough about me... have a gander at the next two pics, which I think are great: first, some hemaglobin for those dainty ladies who tended to faint a lot and second, if that didn't spruce you up, how about some "Hellish Anis... The Worst in the World"? Now, I'm not a physician, but if I were, that's what I would prescribe: hemaglobin (self-administered) and anis.



After the general store we hit the recreated bar...



...and then it was back across the conca just as it started to get dusk to climb some winding roads and arrive at to a nice little town on a big hill.



We were there to check out both the view and a new museum in the home of a 4th generation doctor who had lived in exile in the Soviet Union. While waiting for the cool guy to open that place, we hung out in the town's church, where we came across this figure:



Anyone know who he is/what he represents? Note: if it's totally obvious to Catholics (that's you, Jen), please don't laugh at me. I may have been baptised, but that's the end of it.

Because I had feasted earlier that day, there was no need for dinner and I got J to just drop me off at the hotel around 10... an early night because we were going to go mushroom hunting in the morning...

Funny

A Complicated Treatise on Fuet and Chorizo...

Mmmm... Fat...

Mmmm... Flavour...

Pyrenees Part 1,

Last Thursday, I took the bus to Tremp, a town in the Pallars Jussà comarca of Catalunya. The area is spectacular: a wide, deep valley called the Conca surrounded by the mountains of the pre-Pyrenees. Agriculture is the primary industry, although they're trying to increase the tourism trade as well. I went as the guest of Júlia, the Catalan intern I was working with in the summer. She was an amazing host and drove me all around the region. Meeting her family was a delight and the fact that her dad and I share a similar appreciation for all things gastronomic didn´t hurt either! More on that later...

Buses heading north leave Barcelona from the aptly named Barcelona Nord Estació d´Autobussos. The driver was remarkably happy and friendly and I later learned that he knows pretty much everybody on the entire route... let´s just say that we stopped in some pretty small pueblos.

Barcelona traffic was bad so it took almost 40 minutes out of what would be a 4 hour trip to simply leave the city. The immediate prize, though, was a close up view of Montserrat -- one of the most important mountains in Catalan culture.



It's a spectacular sight that comes out of nowhere and seems like it has just been plunk down like a giant alien landscape... a formation that is, by the way, supposed to be part of the inspiration of the Torre Agbar building's gherkin-like form...

Once past Montserrat, you're onto the plains (note to self: do not ride across here in the summer) before entering the mountains and winding your way to the Pallars Jussà.

I had the pleasure of staying in a distinctly non-cookie cutter hotel, the Segle XX, which is right in the middle of Tremp. Comfy, a little smoky (three ashtrays for a double room!) but nice. Check out the vintage furniture! And now-hip-again wallpaper!



I dumped my stuff at the hotel and the Júlia took me to meet her dad, Jordi, who was starting to prepare a huge meal for a bunch of his friends (and to which I was invited later that evening, as well). They have a sort of gastronomical society set up but really, it's just her dad who does the cooking every week... the others enjoy. After some small talk Júlia and I went to meet her uncle Enric and see his vineyards.


Cellers Vila Corona is located just outside of Tremp on a couple hundred acres that have magnificent views of the mountains. Enric was kind enough to show me around the vines and I got to snag a few of the chardonnay and riesling grapes, which are ripening nicely, and hence were very tasty... He's got a nice variety of red grapes as well: merlot, ull de llebre (tempranillo in Spanish) and cabernet. Given that we're so close to harvest time and that I didn't see any airguns or nets, I started to wonder what he did about birds when all of sudden we heard a goddawful racket of horrible screeching... I half expected Tippi Hedren to come running out of the vines (followed by Žižek, of course)...

What we were hearing was actually a recording of birds in distress (apparently the distress comes from the fact that the screeching ones are having the shit kicked out of them by other, meaner birds...). It does a remarkable job of keeping real ones away... Check it out... (note, the low tilt I employ here midway through is not an aesthetic caprice: I was plugging my left ear to stop from being deafened)

Watch this from 1:40 on or skip directly to 4:40 to hear Žižek channel Melanie...

Enric gave me a lot of information about the industry in this area, what the challenges are, etc. It will be interesting to compare with the Priorat...

Before heading back to the house for an aperitif and to try some of the wines, we did a quick detour to the hort (garden), where, among other things, there was a fig tree... Now, I had never eaten fresh figs off the tree before (simply bad timing everywhere I've gone that had them) and both he and Júlia could see I was excited... so we picked a bunch and hence, the following photo of me happily stuffing my face... : )



Now this would have been a full day in itself but there was still the gastronomic society dinner to attend back at the bar. Jordi´s meal was fantastic... we started with simple salads that were liberally aliñadas and then had the main event: cod that had been cooked in oil with orange essence and candied onions on the side... spectacular! Oh, and there was wine, and orujo, and coffee and lots of talking in Western Catalan... which kept me on my toes.

I slept very well in the Segle XX that night...

The Future is Now

I just bought a "ticket" to a town in the Pyrenees and the coach company sent it to my mobile...

meanwhile, the TTC is still using tokens...

An Unforgettable Evening in Barcelona

Wow. Where to begin?

I understand Barcelona better than I did a few hours ago -- and that one can learn important new things about a city that had become so comfortable is just plain awesome.

Here's what happened:

I had spent most of the day in front of the computer writing, doing editing tasks, preparing PhD exam questions, etc. so I was eager to head out to watch the Barça game at a cheap watering hole in Gràcia with Fran's sister Marga and her partner, Robert. Because I was running a bit late, I grabbed the train two stations down and started to walk across the neighbourhood. Now, I don't know how it happened -- maybe I just kind of spaced out or something -- but I somehow ended up staring into a set of lights on the train. The problem was that the afterimage was so strong that I began to have trouble focusing, especially since the persistent line of lights was tracking down when I looked at things (like the scar on my retina does). Looking at other lights only made it worse -- thinking about it now, I think that it was simply eye strain but at the time it was kind of freaking me out and I couldn't just sit down and just close my eyes to rest them or anything because I would be late for the kick-off..

As I walked through Gràcia the effect kept getting worse and I started to get a little worried about the whole thing until I remembered the reading on "dazzling" from the course I taught on World's Fairs and material culture last year. A 19th century phenomenon, dazzling was the name given to the effect of being overwhelmed by artificial light... I reasoned that I was having a total throwback experience, that it happened to a lot of people and would eventually go away... Thus, feeling like I had properly rationalised the fact that my vision was impaired ["I cannot see" to quote the Daleks], I popped into the Celler de la Ribera wine shop on c/Cigne to briefly check out their wares (there's always time for wine...). That detour done, I was off again and almost to the rendez-vous point, when I checked my phone and saw that I had a message from Robert: watching the match at the bar was off; we were going to the stadium... : )

I hurried along and met him as he was coming out of the flat, the extra motorcycle helmet in his hand... (yay! shades of riding around and bribing Mexican cops with Clark, or getting rides home in Ithaca with Fran...hmm, when I learned how to drive the Morrisons' bike a few summers ago, I should have got my licence, alas...) Regarding the change of plans, it turns out that a friend of Robert's had 4 season ticket holders' seats with 2 left over. On account of her Catalan classes, Marga, unfortunately, could not make it -- which allowed me to take her place... moltes gràcies, Marga!

Now, the trip from the corner of c/Sant Lluis and Torrent de les Flors in Gràcia across town to the Camp Nou has to have been one of the most exciting half hours I've ever spent outside... [Mum, if you happen to ever read this, skip down a bit now to save yourself some worrying-stress]. I suppose that the first thing one must know is that Robert is VERY serious about FC Barcelona. So he was always going to get us there promptly. The fact that our benefactors who were, in effect, giving us gold star tickets for free, were waiting for us so that they themselves could go in meant that Robert was going to get us across town with extreme prejudice. I literally stopped counting the liberal interpretations of Spain's already liberal approach to the driving code after about 2 mins and concentrated instead on hanging on and keeping my knees tight to the moto, while trying not to burn a hole in my Campers on the manifold. We dodged, we weaved, we sped, we drafted behind buses, we, uh, forced others to yield to us... the blaugrana express would not be denied!

In retrospect, as someone who has dedicated a good chunk of his professional (and not-so-professional) life to studying Barcelona, I am absolutely thrilled to be able to say that I learned something incredibly basic tonight: that you simply cannot truly know this city until you have been in its traffic, until you have formed part of that smog-producing peloton of motos that scream up and down the streets, make you jump back, entice you with its visions of gorgeous women in heels and helmets, men in Armani suits on BMWs so big they must be compensating for something, and above all, produces a goddawful racket that keeps tired tourists up all night and sends them home saying "not only does Barcelona smell bad, it's SO LOUD..."

As I write this, I can still smell the exhaust fumes on my clothes-- I'm imagining Marinetti after he rolled that car and wrote the Futurist manifesto -- and I can feel a headache coming on... but what a way to see the city...

The closer we made it to the Camp Nou, the denser the traffic got and the more ingenious Robert became. We slalomed around some raised barriers and then, along with a group of others, we decided that the oncoming traffic didn't really need two lanes -- why were they driving away from the stadium anyway? Who were they? Madrid fans?? We finally made it, both of us exhilarated by the ride. The moto was left amongst thousands of others (Robert told me that he had never seen so many there before) and we met up with his friends and entered the stadium just in time for kick-off. It was at that point that I realised that my eyesight was back to normal... thank god.



The Camp Nou is one of the cathedrals of football. I had been once before and it was great but the team was not as good as the one that they have now. Barça was playing Sporting Lisbon in a group match of the Champion's League. The stadium wasn't full but there was quite a crowd, nonetheless. Barcelona played very, very well and won 3-1. A couple of times during the game, i would just turn and observe the crowd as it watched. With the exception of a few tourists, there weren't many people of colour there -- but that's the reality of the section I was sitting in. What struck me, though, was how the looks on soccer fans' faces are so timeless. Hairstyles and sideburn length may come and go, but the image of someone deeply concentrated--yet ready to explode in joy or frustration at any moment--their visage framed by a scarf tied around their neck, is something that does not change... even if the players that they are egging on have become richer and more coddled as the decades have passed, the utter investment in those men chasing a ball is intense and scary. During the Francoist dictatorship, the Camp Nou was one of the only places where Catalan culture was permitted to be displayed. The team's slogan: Més que un club [More than a club] refers not only to their philanthropic endeavours but to the role of the team in Catalonia's modern history. Bobby Robson, a former coach, hit the nail on the head when he once said: "Catalonia is a nation and Barça is its army."

One last thing that I learned tonight, less sociological and more purely ludic in nature, is that Lionel Messi is indescribably good at playing football... I won't even try... suffice it to say that a couple of times I (and probably thousands of others) got goosebumps watching him dribble through 3 or 4 defenders. On one ocasion, I would even swear that he passed the ball to himself off the shins of an opposing player some 3 metres away... simply incredible.

Walking out of the stadium into the cool fall air, overwhelmed by it all, I couldn't help but wonder (for the umpteenth time) how a kid from Caledon Village ended up here...

The ride back to Via Augusta was less frantic but still engaging -- the mass of motos forced its way in spurts through the mass of cars and people on foot... a glimpse of space was pursued by dozens, the engines gunning and the exhaust billowing out...

When Robert dropped me off, I thanked him profusely -- come to Toronto, we'll go see TFC, anything you want! Once in the flat, I cracked open a beer and sat down to think and then started to write. It's not everyday that you get to see one of your cities in a new way. (And I definitely want a moto now...)


NOT Robert's bike, but the only pic I have on file...

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Smokehead single malt from Islay...

Oh my, this was the coup de grace at dinner last night... Gemma had made some wonderful quiches (one of smoked salmon and broccoli, another with ground beef that was reminiscent of a tourtiere) while Nick and Silvia brought a cherry pie for dessert. I showed up with some of that barrica-aged cava... which didn't last very long... It was a good wine night: I also got to try a grape from Galicia that I had never heard of: godello. Very nice stuff and I recommend it if you can find it. Here's a review of the very same wine that Frederick opened for us... We also tasted the "house" Priorat that Gemma's brother makes (and whose winery I'll be visiting soon, hopefully for the harvest) as well as a very fine Portuguese red. Oh, and a sweet wine from Cadillac that had some rubberyness to it and maybe lacked just a touch of the acidity that makes Sauternes stand out.

So topping all of that off with one of the strongest and peatiest scotches that I've had in a LONG time was probably not the smartest thing to do, but who am I to refuse?

When I woke up this morning I seriously wondered if I had somehow swallowed a mouthful of dirt at some point during the night... the peat was still palpable... I think that next time I have Smokehead, it will not be on the back of cava, quiche, red, white or sweet wine... it'll be outside on a terrace or porch... and with Andrew, 'cause peat's his middle name.

Barcelona Graffiti

Some recent finds:


This one is particularly apropos of the housing and economic crisis...
It says "Mortgage your life for a fucking niche."



This badger was beneath it -- another commentary about being forced to live in a hole?


The next four are what you see when you emerge from the metro at the Glòries station, where the Torre Agbar is located...








I love this fish-thing. This artist does a lot of work around metro stations and is one of my favourites.

And this is what lies beyond...

Catalan Nationalism According to a Butcher...

The other day, when I was down at the Santa Catarina Market, I started talking to a butcher who had overheard me explaining my project on terroir and Catalan nationalism to one of the ladies working at the stand. She had just given me some llonganissa d’Organyà as well as some really good chorizo made from ibèric when the butcher thrust his head between the hanging sausages and salamis and asked me matter-of-factly, “You want to know where Catalan nationalism is?” “Where?” I responded, pretty much knowing where this was leading. "It's in the blood!" he yelled, his face turning red. "Blood! Blood!" he continued, and then, drawing his thumb across his throat he became even more precise: "It's in our blood because we have continually had our throats cut by others." With that he turned away, the rauxa gone and the seny once more in control... "Number 73! Next!"

Diada Nacional

Yesterday was Catalonia's national day. It's a holiday that commemorates the fall of Barcelona to the Bourbons on 11 September, 1714 as part of the War of Spanish Succession. People congregate downtown for official ceremonies, hang the nationalist banner from their balconies and then gather for a march at the Plaça d'Urquinaona. That's where I headed and it was quite a good time. There was some rowdiness early on, with drummers and socialist provocateurs selling their wares (I got some cool pins to give to people) but then it calmed down. Lots of families showed up and cute earnest hippy girls with their faces painted seemed to be everywhere. I threw on a bandana with the estelada on it and took pictures while the speeches went on...and on...and on...

Eventually, a giant flag was unfurled behind a flat-bed truck that served as a stage. As the vehicle headed east on Trafalgar street, people marched behind it slowly. For my part, I peeled north into the Eixample; it was simply too hot to keep standing out in the sun. Popping into one of the few establishments that was open, I sat at the bar, ordered a granissat de llimona, and watched people saunter by on the sidewalk...

"Bobno Callaghan" Explained...

A couple of people have wondered where the Bobno Callaghan moniker comes from... here's the short version:

Bobno Callaghan is the name that a schizophrenic co-worker gave me when I worked at the trophy factory in Brampton, Ontario. He told me that we were brothers, that his name was Robno Barolet and that my name was not Bob Davidson as I had been led to believe all these years but, rather, Bobno Callaghan. Now, this guy told me some pretty crazy shit... oh, and he talked to invisible people, too, gesturing to them and moving out of the way to let them pass, etc. while conversing.

One day, I couldn't take it anymore so I asked him who was there exactly. He replied that he could see all sorts of people in the room and that they were from all over the world. Normally, this would pose a linguistic problem but not so for Robno, because--truth be told--he was God and could speak all languages. An unfortunate deity, Robno had been splintered into different facets and was living simultaneously in multiple timestreams -- "O-K..." I thought, "and this incarnation was fat, slobby and condemned to spend his days in a trophy factory... uh, huh..."

Anyway, let's get back to the invisible people in the shipping dept.: they worshipped Robno but also undermined his sexuality, or so I was told. But fear not, dear reader, because Robno had a personal sex therapist: none other than Sebastian Bach of Skid Row... Now, physically, God, or Robno, as this version was known, was not very attractive. He had a big pot belly and a long beard -- and often times both were covered with crusty bits of food that had missed his mouth. I didn't suspect that he was having a lot of sex, but I could have been wrong. Robno was a many talented God, though, and would occasionally write poetry. I asked him to write me some and he did but I put a stop to that after he presented me with his second magnum opus, as it turned out to be a lurid screed about me and my then girlfriend at the time...

Alas, the story of Robno did not end well. First of all, the world did not disappear when he told me it was going to (the forces of Good were supposed to have defeated the forces of the Bogus People) and shortly after that, he kind of went psycho. On the day that he started throwing boxes of small plaques at me, they took him away. : (

Postdata #1:
Robno was replaced in the factory by a skinny redneck who liked to tune in CFGM, the country music station, on our radio in the shipping department. This charmer had been drummed out of the army because he and his buddy had taken things into their own hands during a live-fire artillery exercise. More precisely, they decided to kill a moose that had wandered onto the range. They were quite successful but rather than receive commendations, the brass rewarded their gumption with summary courts-martial.

Postdata #2:
Re: questions as to the name of this blog, it is simply one of the best things one can hear someone say... or say yourself. Try it and you'll see!

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Barcelona... neta!

So the plaça around Richard Meier’s MACBA has been cleansed. When this building went up, it was one of the first major projects to push into the Raval and has acted as an anchor for the gentrification that has been sweeping the area ever since. [see Guerin’s En construcción (2001) for a pace-defying treatment of this phenomenon... what do I mean by “pace-defying”? Watch it. You’ll see...]

In any event, the wide-open plaza that was created, along with the sloping step of the museum, make this space an ideal venue for skaterboarders. What is more, over the last few years, this area has become almost like a living room for assorted hippies and punkys (“punk” sounds so silly in Spanish... oh no! I’m being mugged by a punky!), who have served to humanise a space that--one has to admit--is seriously sterile otherwise... especially when the sun is shining... as it is wont to do here in BCN. When SONAR sets up its tent every year and fills in the space, the openness is immediately remarkable for its absence. One more permanent recent addition is the automated Bicing rack, from which one can rent a bike and trek across town, with the option to leave it at another location. A nice idea, but biking in Barcelona is not my idea of fun. This city is eminently walkable and the risk/reward ratio involved in getting on a bike and navigating streets and alleys is not very promising. Oh well, I suppose hopping on one of these for a short, dedicated jaunt is better than taking one of those organised bike tours of the city that barge through neighbourhoods at all hours... please, if you come here, do not take a bike tour that puts you in a convoy with 30 other people... you'll look like a ninny.

Back to the plaza... it’s too bad that the powers that be have pushed out the “counterculture” types. But then, I guess that the people who stay in the nearby Camper Hotel don’t want to feel threatened by layabouts and shaggy people, do they?

One can only wonder how long the CNT store/sede will last... it’s just down the street and the anarchist movement in Barcelona is long past its heyday...