On fleeing and homecoming

There's no easy last entry for this blog...

I'm glad to be home, and glad that Spain has shown its best side in the last weeks.  But for my blog-reading peeps who can, stay in the streets.

So, my Fulbright grant is officially over.  I'll be back and forth to Spain over the summer, but I've made a quick trip home (the first since last September, and the first time I've left Spain this year).  I kept reassuring all my friends and neighbors in Carabanchel, "it's just for a couple of weeks.  I'll be back soon" and it's true...but I can feel the beginning of being uprooted, and I'm sad, because I've been mostly very generously welcomed...in Carabanchel, in Madrid, and in Spain.  (I know perfectly well from other Fulbrighters that the welcome extended so generously might be more ambivalent and unpleasant if I weren't white.  This hurts me because I love Spain and want it to be better, but I can still acknowledge the grace with which I have been received and made at home in my immigrant neighborhood, even as other people remind me that the glory of New York is that you can become a New Yorker, and the problem with Europe is that you and your children remain forever foreigners.)

I'm also being generously welcomed home in New York (it turns out I have friends), and I must say that from the moment of landing at JFK I felt the same relief and happiness about being home as always, and the same recognition that New York really is unlike any other place I've been, not only because of my personal associations, but because yes, the cross-section of people you get on a subway car here is more diverse than the (very beautiful) metro in Madrid, even in my neighborhood.  And yes, you can speak English if you want to, but it's really optional.  (I met up with Spanish friends in New York on my first day back, and kept being surprised when the children playing around us in the park spoke such good English.  My instinct is to speak Spanish with children and English with adults now, and I kind of had to reverse it.)

At one of my farewell dinners during my last week in Madrid a concerned Spaniard (considering visiting New York) asked me whether speaking Spanish was "stigmatized" in the city, and I could hardly help laughing as I assured her that it most emphatically was not.  And yet...this is a painful time to come home.

Madrid to Carabanchel - a novel tour

 My Fulbright year officially ended on June 14, and the blog is sadly winding to an end, but here's a little story of one of my final activities....

Faithful blog readers will recall my long winter's silence when I was trying to finish a novel as well as working on my thesis. A few of you have read or heard more about this project, so I thought it would be nice, as one of the final entries, to do a little tour of how important places in the novel look in the present day. So this will be an entry of photos, not so much about my daily life as about the places I wrote about (more or less), although I give fair warning that the neighborhood has changed so much in the last fifty years (and even the last twenty-five) that almost nothing remains of 1876, when the novel is set, and when Carbanchel was a country village outside a much smaller Madrid, that still stayed more or less inside its gates.

Always the last place you look...

To quote Edwidge Danticat's Krik?Krak! “Something is always in the last place you look, because once you find it, you stop looking.”

I had a lovely day finding nothing in the archives yesterday, going first to the university's facultad de filología, as recommended by the friendly archivists as the university's archivo histórico. The facultad de filología is located in the old tabacalera building, a lovely seventeenth century pile of sun-paled stone, set around a series of courtyards. It's a pretty standard stop on the tourist itinerary, and indeed a sign in English, French, and Spanish advises visitors that free audio guides are available just past the entrance. I ignored the audio guides and headed straight for the conserjería, where I got directions to the “secretaria” of the facultad de filología, and then headed through the courtyards decorated with neo-classical statues and fountains, and old signs from the tobacco factory (“Inspección de Talleres” read an archaic sign above a more modern one for restrooms), and where gracious stone arches were discreetly fitted with glass doors to set off important things like the student cafeteria.

Students in the main building of the Universidad de Sevilla

Then I turned off the last courtyard and headed down a hallway where marble gave way to tile and then eventually to linoleum to find a little window (ironically dedicated to Erasmus students) where I offered my somewhat involved explanation of what I was looking for to a young woman who was probably the equivalent of a work study student, and who was clearly used to answering questions about registration and exams. She looked amiable but puzzled and then asked me to wait a minute.

Morons of the Frontier: a morning in the hemeroteca

Sadly, yesterday's triumph was not repeated today.  But perhaps it's one day on, one day off...and there's still tomorrow.

I must say that the archivists of Seville are - individually and as a group - the most kind and helpful I have met.  Yesterday's nice people in the municipal historical archive suggested that if I was researching a journalist I might want to consider the hemeroteca, the collection of local periodicals one floor down, to see if she had written any articles.  It had never occurred to me that Peterson might have published while she was in Sevilla, but as most of her (few) published works are articles, that struck me as logical.  So this morning I presented myself at the hemeroteca after a quick stop in the provincial historical archive to check for her "certificado de buena conducta" which was fruitless ("was she arrested?" asked the friendly man in the white coat brightly.  "Because we have all the prison records from then."  He seemed distinctly less sure of her presence in the archives when I said she hadn't had brushes with the law.)  I looked quickly at the little exhibits in the provincial archive, about the flag of California (for not completely clear reasons) and the letters of nineteenth century novelist Juan de Valera, and also took their little flyer about "international archive day" which has the heading (in "Andaluz"):  ¿Pero qué eh Ud?  ¿Archivista?  Bueno, hay gente pa' to'o.  ("What're you?  An archivist?  Well, it takes all kinds.")  In a sweet attempt to democratize an archive which basically runs to prison records and state control, they also have a little poster saying that everyone has old photos and letters and so on, and that if you contribute them to the provincial archive they will be digitized so we can keep records of "our Sevilla" as it was for all, and another little form to take which you can fill out to make donations of photos or other personal papers.

Anyway, back to going around the corner and up the stairs to the hemeroteca.

In her own hand...a small victory in the archives

 

It took ten months, but I've finally located a primary source document written by one of my authors.

Greetings from Sevilla, where I arrived yesterday afternoon, after planning to visit multiple archives here since September.  Sevilla was the first port of call (in one case literally) for most of the authors I'm studying, and they tended to refer to it using terms like "the heart of Spain."  This is the Andalusian city par excellence, known for its flamenco, for its bougainvillea strewn terraces and balconies, its accent "muy cerrado" and its "color especial."  This is the city that ruled the "West Indies" and saw the expansion (and explosion) of the trans-Atlantic slave trade and got rich from the gold of the New World (and also poor since the Spanish imported so much they accidentally devalued the currency of half of Europe, because they didn't understand about absolute value vs. commodity fetish, but whatever).  This is the "Spanish" city which boasts the Roman ruins of Baetica, the (much restored and renovated) Moorish alcázar and the ramped Giralda, the minaret-cum-belltower with its spinning statue ("giraldilla" or little spinner), thought such an architectural wonder that allegedly the medieval conqueror of the city threatened to slaughter every single civilian Sevillano if the city's defenders tried to destroy it before surrendering.  (To their credit, they put the lives of their citizens above their religious principles, and allowed it to be defaced as a church tower.  It must have been tough on them though.)  In any case, Sevilla is the "heart of Spain," and every single one of my authors thought it was iconic.

I've never really liked it.

Partly that's because my heart has always belonged to Madrid, the much maligned mongrel of the high desert.  Partly that's because the first time I visited Sevilla, almost exactly twenty years ago, the city was unpleasantly split between super luxury tourism of the Bruges-Disney variety and really unpleasant poverty.  And partly just because I'm perverse, and hate falling for all the stereotypes about Spain.  But the archives beckoned, and I have to admit, after twenty four hours here, that it's really a very beautiful city, and that there has also clearly been some attempt at intelligent investment and development (and the presence of some normal stores like supermarkets and pharmacies and hardware stores as well as souvenir stores selling overpriced cachivaches).  And bright and early this morning I set out to visit the Municipal Historical Archive, on the trail of Dorothy Peterson that had led nowhere in Málaga in February.

Hugs and Handshakes all around

It's June, which means the school year is ending, and it's graduation season...and there are lots of award and end of year ceremonies that are similar.  Also the odd swearing-in.

On Friday, 1 June, I had not one but two semi-formal social commitments.  First of all, I was invited to attend the awards ceremony for the most outstanding Erasmus students at the Complutense, on the somewhat shaky grounds that I have been one of the substitutes for the English-language adviser this term, and one of the award winners was from University College London (though the young lady in question is actually French, and being an extremely good student had no need to talk to me for the entire semester anyway).  That was in the morning.  Second, in the evening, I was invited to an optional "end of year gathering" for Fulbrighters before the program officially ends in just two weeks time.

Given that the Fulbright and Erasmus programs have some common features (and some interesting differences), the two ceremonies had some interesting parallels and divergences.  All in all, both were nice affairs, which succumb to the human temptation to make formal milestones to mark endings of things, and indulge in a little benign self-congratulation.  Both involved hugs, promises to stay in touch, excellent tapas, and beer and wine for those participants who enjoy those things (and fanta and coke for me).  But given that they both happened to take place on the same day (and in fact almost literally at the same hour) as the PP government of Spain fell and the PSOE replaced them, and as the shaky Italian coalition took power with all the grace and finesse of what a car insurance ad here calls "a teenager who parallel parks by ear" the overwhelming presence of diplomats from no fewer than six different countries led to some amusing reflections.  The most important one of course being that most of the invited diplomats wisely took advantage of their prior engagement to deliver anodyne congratulations to a bunch of sweet young people to be unavailable for comment while governments dissolved and re-formed.  Like Macavity or Corporal Nobby Nobbs, they were distinctly not there when it came to dramatic events in Moncloa or in Rome, but in this hyper-connected age of checking smartphones, few of them were able to completely keep their concern about what the more tactful among them referred to as "challenging events in the world" from out of their remarks.

Feria de Libro - a low key Spring celebration

After the frenetic fiestas of the First and Second of May, and of San Isidro, Madrid's annual feria de libro seems restful

The Children's Tent at the Madrid Book Fair Shows its calendar of activities

A few days ago a friend alerted me that (unsurprisingly) my bookstore owning friend from Tres Cantos would be bringing her bookstore to one of the stalls at the Madrid feria de libro, which started on Friday and runs for the next two weeks.  She suggested we go say hi, which I thought was a good idea.  Then I realized that of course on the weekend another friend from outside of Madrid was most likely to be signing and presenting her new novel (she has a day job in Ponferrada, so during the week was unlikely).  After an exchange of texts, she confirmed that she was indeed signing Saturday evening from 7:00 to 9:00, and suggested that I stop by toward the end of her signing shift, so we could go have dinner afterward.

So yesterday evening I set out in the late afternoon sunshine and walked to the Retiro, since I hadn't really been out all day, and I wanted some exercise.  Just under an hour and a half brought me to the hordes of evening strollers in the Retiro, and as I wandered past the "Rosaleda" (formal rose garden) and along the crowded paths I saw large numbers of people heading back from the fair, and also a significant number heading towards it (along with a few overheard comments "Is this the right direction?"  "The sign said straight ahead."  "There are people with book fair bags coming from over there.")

Toying with history?

 

A walk last Sunday brought me to an unexpected anniversary commemoration...

After the excitement of San Isidro, and a few days of pleasant socializing with fellow wandering researchers, I had a quiet weekend last weekend, and stuck my nose out of doors on Saturday afternoon purely to go for a walk in order to get some exercise.  I did a walk that I normally enjoy, down through the Cuña Verde to Madrid Río, along the river to Marqués de Vadillo, and then up bustling Calle General Ricardos to contrast with the serenity of the park.  In the interests of doing something different, I thought I would stop into the Centro Comercial (aka mall) La Ermita, which sits along the Paseo Ermita del Santo (yes, that would be San Isidro again) and see what was happening on a Saturday afternoon, since malls tend to be lively.

Actually, the businesses were mostly closed on Saturday afternoon, except for the restaurants and the kids' bouncy castle and the bowling alley.  But walking through the doors of the Centro Comercial I was confronted with a large glass case, with what appeared to be a model of Eiffel Tower and a bunch of little Playmobil figures holding a demonstration.

A diorama, apparently for children, sandwiched in between Foster's Hollywood Restaurant (visible beyond the glass) and Burger King in the Centro Comercial Ermita del Santo

This struck me as odd.

San Isidro: cocido, churros y chocolate (part 3 of 3)

Eating and drinking are fundamental, not incidental to the Fiesta de San Isidro

Waiting on line for the free cocido madrileño in the Parque San Isidro on the Día de San Isidro

Ok, I promise this is the last entry about San Isidro, but it was two days of cool and intense activity, with lots of photos and videos, and many interesting things, and while I was originally planning to make yesterday's entry "chotis, chulapos, and churros" I realized that song, dance, and funny costumes deserved their own entry separate from food, drink, and picnicking (not to mention the fairground ride and fireworks).

Possibly because a friend and fellow researcher I've met here is writing a dissertation about food and politics in 1940s Spain, and possibly because of older research interests of my own, I couldn't help but notice how much importance food is given in the fiestas de San Isidro.  This is a city which has known hunger, and a fair number of the popular songs for San Isidro come close to "food porn."  I was initially impressed on Sunday afternoon in the Plaza de Vistillas that the song which got the audience up from their chairs and dancing (as well as singing along) was something which I initially, listening, thought was a love song, but which actually I would classify more as a "food song" called "Cocidito madrileño."  (A few hours later I mentioned to the friends I was with that there appeared to have been a song dedicated entirely to cocido, whereupon the two of them - mother and daughter, both Madrid-born - exchanged sheepish grins and began to sing "cooocidito madrileñooo...")  Picture an entire plaza full of people singing "porque eres gloria pura, porque eres gloria pura, cocidito madrileño!" in a spasm of civic pride and hungriness and you get a sense of the scene.

San Isidro: Chotis and Chulapos (Part 2 of 3)

 

¡Viva Madrid! ¡Viva San Isidro!

 

Or how an international city does a local party

 

There's a whole wonderful set of silly traditions around San Isidro.  And the best thing is that they're all unashamedly modern and cheerfully not purely "Spanish."  Just purely Madrid. 

San Isidro was canonized sometime in the seventeenth century when Spain's new capital city needed a local saint.  By the late eighteenth century, the sleepy backwater town had doubled and quadrupled in size into a capital city of a flailing empire with huge inequality and plenty of political problems, already about to be eclipsed, but still with a far-flung influence that stretched from Mexico to Manila to Milan...and of course back to Madrid.  By this time San Isidro was well ensconced in his hermitage, and the tradition of the verbena was a standard rite of Spring.  Goya captured the scene in 1788:

Goya's version of the Pradera de San Isidro.  All the buildings in the background are still there, and you can still see some of them.  But there are a lot more buildings blocking the river nowadays.  And a lot less river.

For comparison, here's a picture of the same place I two weeks ago.  Not as different as you'd think:

Note royal palace (Palacio de Oriente) in the distance on the left, and people sitting on grass, as in Goya's painting.

San Isidro in San Isidro (Part 1 of 3)

The fiestas of the patron saint of Madrid mark the unofficial beginning of summer here.   And obviously living in the "Barrio San Isidro" I couldn't miss them, right?

About a month ago I started seeing the signs going up around the city...

 

Clearly, San Isidro was going to be something of a big deal.

A Few Deep Breaths

As I enter my final (uninterrupted) month in Madrid, a couple of thoughts...

I know I keep saying that I'll get back to blogging regularly, and I know I've been bad about it.  The good news is that I have completed a chapter draft for my thesis (now it's just two chapters to revise, and the introduction and conclusion to go!), and have emailed it off.  I've worked out that - not counting this blog and multiple emails to friends and family, but just looking at my thesis and the novel I was working on - I've written about 120K words since September.  And managed to keep my apartment reasonably clean.  Which proves that not having a real job makes you more productive.

Spelunking through the AGA

Research in the Archivo General de Administración is a collaborative effort

Many years ago (in 2006, if I remember correctly) I bicycled from Ghent to Amsterdam and back, on a route of more or less my own devising. One of the subtle differences in cycle culture that I noticed in Belgium and Holland (or more accurately in neighboring Flanders and Zeeland) had to do with signage. In the Netherlands, the bicycle paths were all (at least in theory) extremely well marked, and anyone with a map or a general sense of geography could barely get lost, which meant that those of us poor fools who stopped at crossroads had people whiz past us at speed on their bikes. In Flanders, the signs were considerably less comprehensive, but it was impossible to stop for more than thirty seconds at a crossing without another bike rolling to a stop beside you and saying (usually in English) “Are you lost? Can I help you find something?” The better signs meant less informal assistance between cyclists, and the more cryptic indications meant a friendlier camaraderie among those who were trying to puzzle them out.

I have found that the Archivo General de Administración is like Flanders to the nth degree. The finding aids are cryptic to the point of unintelligibility even when they are not frankly inaccurate. But the staff are lovely and helpful, and I have the advantage of working alongside a fellow researcher (and former Fulbrighter), who is doing something completely unrelated. Yesterday she came over and knelt by my desk, whispering, “I think I've found some associations that might be useful for you” and provided me with a bunch of box call numbers. In return, I have noted the boxes where her subject pops up, and have been carefully passing the information along to her. And meanwhile the friendly archivists look at the call numbers and say “¿estás interesada en prensa?” based purely on the boxes you are requesting, and their memories of previous call requests. (My former-Fulbright-friend said she was greeted on her arrival with another grant this year with the assurance that “the good news is that no one has looked at your boxes since you were here two years ago. The bad news is they're still not better catalogued.”) All of us are wandering in a labyrinthine collection of tens of thousands of boxes with probably millions of individual documents that would make Jorge Luis Borges himself dizzy, like his bibliotecarios de Babel we leave little flare guns and notes and helpful hints for each other, which makes research at once slower and less productive, but tremendously more fun and social.

Feliz día del libro!

My day of helicopters, blue fingers, and lilacs

I woke up this morning to the alarm and a WhatsApp from my Complutense mentor wishing me "feliz día del libro."  As April 20 was the "noche de libros" in Madrid, and I knew we were coming up on the anniversary of Cervantes' and Shakespeare's death, I wasn't totally surprised.  Today is also I believe Sant Jordi in Catalunya, when people burn furniture (don't ask), and also booksellers have major book fair events.  (You're not supposed to burn the books.  It's just a coincidence that the patron saint of Catalunya and the Day of the Book coincide.  Given that he's a patron saint in England as well, perhaps St. Jordi/Saint George watches over language use generally.)

Alcalá de Henares in sunshine and rain

One of the (many) posts I meant to do but didn't, and today's new research adventures

 

Alcalá de Henares in cold March rain

I traveled for the second time to Alcalá de Henares on Thursday (and the third time on Friday), to consult the mysteriously named Archivo General de Administración, which sounds like something from Yes, Minister, and actually appears to be something a bit more sinister and Orwellian.  My quest involved getting up early and taking the cercanías, and then spending three exhausting but fascinating hours in the archives (until they closed at 2:30), and then lunch in beautiful summery weather in an outdoor café, and a brief trip to the Casa-Museo Cervantes.  The sunshine and open museums and general holiday atmosphere outside the archives was a funny contrast to the first time I went to Alcalá, almost exactly one month ago, also for professional reasons, to give a lecture at the university.  I had a productive professional time and a very interesting tourist time there then too, but it was Monday (so many things were closed), and pouring rain, and quite cold.  My poor wet feet were very sad and chilly in March.  The only thing that happened in April was that I wanted to stop and buy a coke before the train home because I was mildly thirsty after walking around in the sun.  What a difference a month makes.

Getting back to work...

 

Time is slipping away...

It's been a while since I've blogged, although I've been thinking about doing it a lot lately.  Some of that is down to having a series of house guests in fairly close succession, which means getting to be a tourist and going around with people and showing them fun stuff (and also four wonderful days in Alicante, which are probably worth several entries that they probably won't get).  Some of it is exhaustion after writing a lot quickly to try to finish a piece of fiction so I can get back to my thesis.  And some of it is (surprise!) actual thesis work -- which I've realized I can't put off any longer, since tomorrow marks the two month count-down to my return to New York (though I'll probably be back in Madrid over the summer, especially toward the end of July to finish up dealing with apartment stuff, as well as just enjoying being here without work, as always).  So this is a transitional entry, mentioning briefly a bunch of stuff that has happened, and acknowledging that I won't get all of it down, and hoping to do better going forward, in the very small amount of time that is left.

A funny detail of the rain...

Apologies for letting the blog slide for a few weeks...

I've been trying to finish a piece of writing over the last month or so, and I'm afraid this blog has been neglected.  No, not my thesis (sorry, if any of my professors are reading this, I swear it will get done too).  Just some fiction inspired partly by my neighborhood - and in direct response to my Complutense mentor here who said "nothing ever happens in Carabanchel"  and partly (ironically) by the class of said mentor last semester, which I audited, and where I got to learn a bit more about a chapter of Spanish history that shows up in my story.  (And it is literally a chapter, or chapters.)  The story is about a young academic who comes to Madrid doing research on manuscripts and ends up in Carabanchel.  I wonder what could have ever given me that idea?  😁

In any case, I'm afraid that between working at finishing that story, plus following up on my visit to the embassy and doing some of the lectures to college students that they asked me to do, plus the odd glance at reading for my thesis, plus staying on top of emails home and welcoming a few visitors, there simply hasn't been much time to blog.  I promise many blog posts to catch up on what I'm doing in terms of interesting trips and lectures and so on, but this is just an assortment of random details that I thought were charming and/or curious.  Consider this entry an apology to my faithful readers.

It's raining, do I still have to save the world?

I was planning an amusing blog entry, but couldn't find the event that was supposed to happen.

First off, I should say for all those readers out there in the blogosphere that it's not snowing.  Somewhat north of here (in much of Castilla-León) it is snowing, and El País is reporting three deaths and multiple cut highways due to a winter storm.  The Guardian is also reporting that trains and roads are closed in Britain, which is getting a heavy dumping of snow (probably a lot heavier than northern Spain, to be honest), and I assume the same conditions prevail across much of the EU.  So, I'm lucky it's not snowing.

It's raining.  A lot.

After the super-dry autumn this is hopefully good for the reservoirs (though El País now is saying there are flood warnings for the Duero, so I don't know how much they'll be able to hold onto the water).  However, it also seems to have rained out an event I was planning to go to in order to spice up this relatively dull blog, as the last week or so since my return from Malaga has been quietly curled up reading articles, and doing a bit of outlining, and writing, which is not very interesting.  (That is, I think the content is interesting, but the process is not interesting to write about.)  I am giving a couple of guest lectures at the Complutense in a few weeks time, which I will report back on, but in the meantime yesterday on the way to the metro I passed a flyer pasted on a bus shelter calling for a "manifestación" to give Carabanchel its own Centro de Salud.  It was one of those wordy posters that explains the many years that the residents of Carabanchel have been forced to go out of their neighborhood to a different Centro de Salud for healthcare, with lots of statistics, some of which are repeated here.

The Prettiest Milonga in Málaga...and an unexpected encounter

My last evening in Málaga

Milonga "El Jardín" by the Cathedral in Málaga

Before heading to Málaga I checked online for milongas, and threw a pair of tango shoes into my bag just in case, since I saw that there was a regular one on Thursdays. I almost didn't go out Thursday evening, since I was tired, and very tempted to just stay in and watch TV. A desire to eat dinner propelled me out, but I decided (after further reading online) that I would just bring along my tango shoes as a backup, but would not change my clothes into the dress I had brought and the alternate shoes instead of my sneakers. So I wandered back to Málaga's Cathedral, and its pedestrianized city center....which is completely dead at 10:00. Seriously, it's weird, even the restaurants looked more like restaurants at 10:00 PM in other countries....open, but with people finishing dinner, and few people arriving. I've noticed generally that out of season things tend to close early in Málaga (the Alcazaba and the Roman Amphitheater at 6:00 – which is ridiculous since it's light until 7:00 and a bit after now), and the side effect of being so completely set up for tourists is that the hours are very un-Spanish. (Mind you, the Cien Montaditos in the food court at the railway station outside of the tourist center was packed and jumping at 10:15 on Wednesday when I managed to squeeze in and find a seat, and the food court in the station is open until 1:00 AM though there aren't trains after midnight, but that's different.)

Anyway, I wandered through the beautifully lit but eerily still pedestrian zone, wondering if I was making a mistake, and if I would find the restaurant where the milonga was supposed to be dark and silent, as has often happened when I've searched for milongas in the past.

Down among (yesterday's) grassroots

The Archivo Histórico Provincial de Málaga does not have things of immediate interest to my research...but it does have things of interest.

I had a productive Thursday, spending the morning in the Provincial Historical Archive again and combing through personnel files of the cuerpos de seguridad which were useless to my research but quite amusing. I discovered Nobby Nobbs levels of police corruption in one handwritten transcription of the deposition of various complainants and one guardia de vigilancia charged with buying lottery tickets on credit from them and not paying for the tickets throughout 1930-1931. He'd run up a tab of 50 pesetas to one lottery vendor and 45 to another before they finally got up the courage to complain. (Since El ONCE in Spain is traditionally run as a charity for the blind, and the ticket vendors were and are traditionally blind or visually impaired, this falls into the category of taking money from a blind man's cup, almost literally. One of the ticket sellers who complained added specifically in his deposition that his only previous contact with the police had been about precisely the theft of coins from his cup and that at that time he had been “attended to courteously and promptly” – suggesting that dealing with the shakedown guy who didn't pay for tickets was an unpleasant surprise.) As I know from reading several files, the annual salary for a guardia de vigilancia was 3500 pesetas, and for a blind ticket seller presumably considerably less. So 50 pesetas could be a week's income from the ticket seller, or at least a few days worth. (Say the equivalent of about 150-200 euros.) Abusing authority that way seems sleazy, if not actively criminal. The internal investigator apparently agreed, since the deposition ends by saying that the accused was forced to pay the amount he owed in the presence of witnesses.

Archives, alcazaba, rinse, repeat

Today was in some ways a repeat of yesterday...but more efficient.

After a nice morning in the archives, in which I did not find anything useful, but learned a few amusing things about the "asociaciones culturales" and "casinos" (social clubs) of Málaga in the early twentieth century, and also started looking at the long ago personnel files of the cuerpo de vigilancia of Málaga, I headed directly back to the alcazaba, stopping for lunch at a Japanese restaurant I had noted earlier, that was quiet and quite good.  (The one problem with Málaga being so set up for tourists is that the restaurants tend to be overpriced and to offer "typical" foods which are anything but, and are not very good.  I made the mistake of ordering what was called "fideua" as a primero on Monday and found it was overcooked spaghetti which had been chopped up to one inch lengths.  A disappointment.  The teriyaki however was excellent, the waiters were Japanese and the clientele were Spanish, an ideal combination.)  Then I went back and visited the Roman amphitheater and the alcazaba a second time, this time with a fully charged camera battery and a memory card in the camera.  And it was worth it.  This may be more an entry of pictures than of commentary, simply because the Alcazaba is so beautiful.

Once more into the archives....

 

Today I visited two archives, and did not get as far as I had hoped, or as little as I had feared.

Greetings from sunny and spring-like Málaga, where the skies are blue, the palms are green, and the tourists are plentiful, even in winter, when the overbuilt beach isn't usable.  I got up with an alarm clock, and have walked at least ten kilometers today (probably more like fifteen altogether) and am exhausted, but certainly have plenty of adventures to write about.  I suspect that the blog entries, like my day, will end up being in two parts: the morning in the archives, and the afternoon in Malaga's stunning ruins.  So, on to the archives.  I started with the one closer to my hotel, on the Alameda Principal that connects the newer part of the city to the headland with the medieval center and cool ruins.  These are the municipal archives, of the city of Malaga.  They look like this:

"Americans! Strange people. Lovely manners."

 

Three days with 150+ Fulbrighters have left me wondering what exactly unites "Americans" beyond all being slightly strange.

Fulbrighters in Salamanca's Plaza Mayor.  "A Washingtonian, a Hoosier, and a New Yorker walk into a plaza..."

I should start out by saying that the title for this entry is a quote from the film Mrs. Henderson Presents, a comment of the title character (played by Judi Dench), upon being informed that a character is American.  I would never subscribe to the "lovely manners" generalization (frequently the stereotype of the ugly American is just the reverse), but the "strange people" certainly echoes the insightful John Oliver's comment in one of his stand up routines that Americans are "much weirder than you give yourselves credit for being."  I must say I think the Fulbright Commission in general is to be congratulated for coming up with a nicely wide sample of people who are both "decent human beings" but also interesting human beings, who have in fact very little in common, but are therefore very fun and interesting to talk to when the opportunity arises.  Three days in Salamanca actually made me curious about visiting parts of the US I've never visited before.

Salamanca - old traditions, and young people, in sun washed gold

The Fulbright mid-year meeting gave me a chance to get to know this charming town

"Salamanca" has been "the University" for a long time now.  So it's a glimpse of what a nice little places like Williamstown or Amherst may be like in 600 years if they're lucky.  (Adjusted for architecture, of course.)

Salamanca rises above the banks of the Río Tormes, just before a snowstorm

As mentioned earlier, I am just back from the Fulbright program's "mid year meeting" in Salamanca, which ran from Wednesday afternoon to Friday evening.  The commission put us all up in (two) hotels and kindly gave us all the option of staying Friday night if we wanted, so we had Saturday free to explore the city further, which I did.  (There are 155 Fulbright grantees this year, in addition to the families of the some of the researchers, so we're a big group.  Hence the two hotels worth.)  The mid-year meeting itself was interesting, and involved a few small group sessions about how our research or teaching is going, and how we're adjusting to life in Spain (during which I sat and felt stupid while other people complained about the difficulties of cultural adjustment, because I'm completely happy and contented and haven't missed buying peanut butter or eating dinner before 8:00 PM at all - partly because I seldom do either of those things at home).  There were also a much larger number of presentations by various Fulbrighters about either their research or their experiences in Spain mostly as English teachers, since the English Teaching Auxiliaries are the bulk of the program.  (Everyone calls them the E.T.A.s which I think is funny.  TA is a standard abbreviation for Teaching Assistant, but E.T.A. with the three letters pronounced stands for Estimated Time of Arrival for me.  And it's just lucky for them that the members of the Basque separatist group ETA pronounced as a word here are called "etarras.")  The presentations were generally interesting, and deserve their own entry, as does the socializing with 100+ young Americans (one of whom in a breakout session described his vision of cultural ambassadorship as "a kind of passive ambassadorship, just by being a decent human being so people know there are Americans who are").  My brief conclusion (to be expanded on at more length): the United States is incredibly less uniform in culture than I usually think of it being, and certainly less uniform than most Europeans believe.  But for now, I think Salamanca itself deserves an entry on its own, especially since we were brought there to get to know a new place, and it really is a pretty place, for a lot of reasons.  (See pretty pictures after the jump.)

Snow and cold

Another reason madrileños are called "gatos"....

This was the view outside my kitchen window this afternoon.  The white streaks that may be barely visible (depending on the size screen you're viewing this on) are not dirt on my kitchen window (I have nice clean windows, thank you).  They are fat, wet, almost snow-flakes, falling toward the ground (where they melt on contact, leaving the street all wet, but not frozen).

My across the street neighbor has just raised the shutter and opened the window, and is standing in her window smoking, and leaning out the window looking down at the street with an expression of disgust.  Two boys are huddled under the portico (just to the left of the picture frame) busily on their phones, with their coats pulled up around their ears, absolutely refusing to go out.

Showing the Flag

I paid my first visit to an embassy today.  (I've been to consulates in New York, but never an embassy.)  It was...interesting.

Some weeks ago a pair of polite "cultural affairs officers" at the US embassy emailed me, and said that they had been reviewing the projects of current Fulbrighters, and found my research topic "fascinating" and would love to get together and have coffee and hear about it.  I thought this was odd, but agreed (after checking with the Fulbright commission and LinkedIn that they indeed were who they said they were).  After some back and forth, and delays due to people having the flu and then being maybe possibly on furlough and then not again, we had our meeting today.  So I paid my first visit to the US embassy in Madrid, a compound of singular ugliness in this mostly gracious city, and had a (I must admit very nice) cafe con leche con hielo in the embassy cafeteria.  I would have much preferred to have both the coffee and the meeting in the Starbucks literally across the street from the embassy, but they seemed anxious to show me their offices, and introduce me to people, and explain what they do.  Within cultural affairs they have a "grants and education" division, and a social media division, and a few other things I can't remember, all set up in gray carpeted cubicles that look like something out of Dilbert, although the officers I met with each had their own office, with walls that went all the way to the ceiling and windows (they're on a high floor) that looked out over a courtyard that would have been prettier had it not been pouring rain, and also had it not been being used as a parking lot.

Long story short, after politely asking about my research and listening to me blither for a while, they said that they were looking for speakers to talk about various aspects of US-Spanish relations in history and culture, to various groups, including high school students, and also universities, adults, etc. and would I be interested in doing some speaking engagements to talk about my research.  Since blithering about research is pretty much what all PhD students do at the drop of a hat anyway, and since I certainly have no objection to talking about it, I said yes.  But I might have felt better about saying yes if I hadn't spent the morning before my appointment reading about how the CIA financed the Paris Review and the whole sordid history of the Congress for Cultural Freedom.  I don't particularly plan to censor what I'm going to say (and I doubt anything I say about stuff from between fifty and a hundred years ago is controversial), but I still feel like Edward Said and James Baldwin would disapprove.  Sorry, guys.

Spring-like evening, with cats

 

Having spent a few days feeling somewhat guilty about my lack of adventures, a quiet Sunday turned into a lovely confirmation of why I love this neighborhood.

I had nothing particular planned for this Sunday, which enabled me to have a long lazy breakfast, do some minor cleaning up, and then hang around and not do terribly much for most of the afternoon.  I had noted that the weather was an unseasonably warm 16 degrees (about 62) according to my phone, but couldn't quite believe it.

However, I had planned a minor quest today, to make sure that I got out of the house and stretched my legs.  As most things are mostly closed on Sundays (more on that later), I decided to head out to the Hipercor, where the Corte Inglés is open seven days a week, and where I had noted a while ago that they sold (a)Kikoman's soy sauce (I distrust the Heinz and other suspicious brands at the supermarket here which have added sugar) and (b)couscous.  Along with coconut water, I have been missing couscous.  (Also, it is the ultimate fast prepared food, and now that my yoga has shifted more toward the evenings I get home relatively late, and want dinner quickly.  Plus, I think couscous goes well with fish.)  However, couscous (along with chopped meat and coconut water) is one of the things which is mysteriously rare here.  I remembered seeing it at the Corte Inglés and found it, after a little searching, just separated from the main rice, pasta, and lentils aisle (legumbres) by a horizontal through aisle.  Also found the right kind of soy sauce opposite the couscous in the "salsa" section as opposed to the super-fancy and expensive soy sauce in the "comida internacional" section.  (There is an art to supermarket shopping.)

It was such lovely and unbelievably warm weather that even though the sun was already setting when I left the Corte Inglés I decided to take the long way home, and loop around past the pretty fountain and the little park and playground on the far side of the Hipercor, and then head along the Calle Laguna to the Via Carpetana, rather than just the boring Calle de la Oca.  For some reason most of the clothing stores (as well as the fruterias and restaurants) and also the video game trade-in place on the Calle Laguna were open, even though it was 7:00 PM on a Sunday.  I have no idea if this is a special Sunday, or if people were inspired by the spring-like temperatures, or if it's just that the Calle Laguna is awesome.  However, open it was, and there were people spilling along the sidewalks (and a fair number of children on scooters, even on the streets without open shops, because it was a nice evening, and children need to run around for exercise), and it was very low key and pleasant.

Subway poker face

On the way home today I faced the old New York dilemma...

When you hear people speaking Dutch on the metro do you correct their tranquil certainty that no one can understand them?

 The answer is no.  No, I do not.  On my way home this evening on a crowded train I found myself listening to two Dutch businessmen who got off at Callao.  (I was guessing they would get off at Gran Vía, and I was only one stop off, though then I thought maybe Opera.)  I think they had lived in Madrid for a while, as one of them mentioned his (presumably Spanish?) girlfriend taking Dutch classes just off the Gran Vía.  They were talking mostly about work I think (saying that someone was not very zelf-standige (self-motivated, or independent) and needed a lot of supervision but that it wasn't a situation that was going to go on for years and years so it was fine), and then reminiscing about getting drunk in Malasaña when they were young when we passed Chueca.  (The Chueca metro stop is painted in rainbows to celebrate gay pride, because it's a historically gay neighborhood.  They thought this was cute and probably nice for young gay people who arrived there and knew where to get off the train.)

The Chueca stop.  With rainbows.

Normally at home I feel it's a bit rude to not let people know when I can understand them (even if their conversation isn't deeply private and personal), and I probably would have made eye contact and smiled and given them some hint, but I had just had the metro stairs blocked (and therefore almost missed the train) by a trio of women speaking English to whom I took an instant dislike (because FFS, when it's nearly dinner time and people are trying to get home do NOT walk three abreast on a subway stair, and then turn to look behind you, notice someone is there and too polite to push past, and then resume your conversation and your stair blocking amble). One was a Spaniard, one an American, and one didn't speak. Given my instant antipathy, I had my local monolingual poker face firmly in place so I wouldn't be claimed as a compatriot by the obnoxious one, and it seemed a shame to waste it, especially since most Dutch speakers take me for Spanish anyway (though I think my sneakers are a dead giveaway here).

The light is coming back!

It's always cheerful when the days start to get longer...

Sorry for being temporarily in hibernation.  It was cold, and I was not doing much except working on my Peterson chapter.  But last week I happened to be by Príncipe Pío at around 6:00 PM, and noticed that the sky was dramatically orange with streaks of dark cloud and azure twilight, instead of being full dark as it's been at 6:00 PM for a while now here.  And today I had the opportunity to have a nice long walk home from the Gran Vía, and I took the "classic" route from the Plaza Mayor down the Calle de Toledo (so named because it was the road to Toledo, duh), through the Puerta de Toledo (or rather around it, because it's a traffic circle with a big impractical victory arch in the middle), down to the oft-photographed Puente de Toledo (source of the famous quote about the city having such a fine bridge that they should either sell it or rent a river), and then up the Calle General Ricardos and home (with a brief stop at the Mercadona for some groceries).  And at precisely 18:15 today, I took the following photo of the Puerta de Toledo:

Sunset at the Puerta de Toledo, today, looking out from Madrid toward Carabanchel and home....

#StopBlackface

 

We need to talk about race. (Part I)

Before I get started with what will probably be a long entry, here are two petitions that I've signed, and that I'd like to give some publicity to. I don't do social media, but all you faithful readers who are twitterati and facebook people, please feel free to signal boost:

First is Afroféminas campaign #StopBlackfaceinSpain about the Reyes Magos procession of Alcoy (in the Pais Valenciana), which has been declared a UNESCO "Patrimonio immaterial de la humanidad."  That's right, UNESCO says that having white people blacken their faces and dress up as slaves can't possibly be changed because it's of so much cultural value....to Europeans. FFS please help this get to the pathetic 5000 signatures they're asking. They should be asking for (and getting) 50,000.

Second is one of several petitions circulating to stop the "Nuit des Noirs" that forms part of the carnival in Dunkerque. Given the recent brouhaha about the French journalist Rokhaya Diallo being removed from a panel on the digital divide because she dared to use the words "racisme de l'Etat" it does seem worth noting that the city hall of Dunkerque sponsors this monstrosity.
 
If it's not obvious, this entry is going to be about blackface, about why many Europeans seem to think it's A-OK as long as it's not happening in the United States, and (most importantly) about the intelligent, articulate, and brave people who are fighting entrenched racism in Europe and who should be supported. I'm glad the New York Times and The Guardian have both picked up on the work of Rokhaya Diallo, but that's really just the tip of the iceberg. If you've already clicked the links above and signed the petitions it's too late, but just a warning that some of the images in the links below the jump may be disturbing.

Three Kings. Eight Reindeer. Twelve Days. Or What You Will.

Having ranted about the Christmas Fat Man, I thought I should fulfill my promise, and write about the Reyes Magos.

Christmas is over, and New Year's is passed, and in days of old I would be back at work today, as it's January 2.  But while today is kind of sort of technically not a holiday, anyone with children or teachers in the family still has this week off (ah, the tyranny of the school calendar), because nothing will happen or can happen until January 6, Three Kings Day.

The Reyes Magos (or "wise kings" as one Spaniard I know quaintly referred to them in English) have been appearing everywhere in Madrid on their long ride to bring gifts, possibly to el niño Jesus, but definitely (with the enthusiastic help of the Corte Inglés department store and many smaller merchants) to Spanish children (and preferably from the point of view of the merchants) adults as well.  Even with some exposure via Puerto Rico, the ongoing advertising frenzy here is really impressive.  There are already big bleachers set up all along the Paseo de la Castellana (like those set up for the Thanksgiving Day Parade on Central Park West in New York) in preparation for their grand arrival in Madrid this Friday (obviously they have to stop in Madrid Friday in order to get to Bethlehem by Saturday) in a Cabalgata (or more properly camel-gata), officially devoted to celebrating "the power of imagination and creativity."  I understand people are encouraged to arrive at least six hours early to see the parade from a good vantage point.  Fortunately, there are also local parades in other parts of Madrid.  I may check out the Carabanchel one, which parades down General Ricardos, which is conveniently within walking distance of my apartment, and which thanks to a relatively large contingent of non-Catholics in the neighborhood may be less well attended.  Will share photos if I end up going.

On religious expressions of culture and cultural expressions of religion

 

No, the Christmas Fat Man is not universal

Happy 2018, everybody! I have temporarily emerged from writing cave, and have time to do some reflections on the holiday season in Madrid. This is an entry I've been working at for a while, which is no longer completely contemporary, but still hopefully of interest. I kept meaning to revise it and then it kept getting longer. Sorry in advance.

The dreidels have arrived! (Note picture.) Sadly, I was not able to pick them up in time for nochebuena, so a couple of them still have to be delivered to their new owners, which they will be with a small delay, and a print out of instructions on how to play dreidel. And possibly also another delivery of chocolate coins, since the coins were super successful with my new young friends, who presented me with drawings and “a folder to keep secrets in” when they came over for nochebuena, and who had nearly as much fun spinning the chocolate coins (in the absence of dreidels) and timing how long they could make them spin as eating them. In general, I had a lovely and successful nochebuena with new friends this year, and managed to make latkes and let the kids play with the menorah, and generally have a nice conversation about various cultural traditions as well as the all important conversations about food. (The fact that I forgot to get matches and have an electric stove here meant that I had two candles left from the first night of Hanukkah, so the kids got to light them. They loved striking the matches, and lighting the candles, and also blowing them out. Playing with fire is fun.)