the going gets good

It would be difficult to draw a picture of present-day Madrid (or most likely any major West European city) without placing significant emphasis on the large and growing immigrant population. In Madrid, people from West Africa, South and Central America, and Asia are all part of the fabric of the city. A couple of weeks ago a friend who interns at a children's music school introduced me to Senegalese immigrant named Cherif. He plays the kora, a 20-something stringed instrument with the lute being its closest western equivalent. After being introduced I happened to run into him a few more times at different bars and jam sessions in La Latina. We got to talking and he invited me to play my guitar with him.

Friday afternoon we played for about an hour in his apartment, feeling out each other's styles and seeing if we could come up with something compatible and more importantly, de la puta madre (no exact English equivalent, but I guess "awesome" will suffice). After seeing - and hearing - that this was the case, we walked over to his girlfriend Viviana's bar in Lavapies where we met up with a tuba player from Japan named Chiaki who, as far as I can tell, lives across the narrow street from the bar. Chiaki and Cherif (both of whom I'd say are in their early 30s) had already played a couple of times and we headed to a performance / art space in the basement of the bar to see what it would sound like with all three of us playing together. With Cherif leading with complicated rhythmic melodies on his kora - the instrument is unique in the innate ethereality of its sound - Chiaki and I found ways to complement Cherif's playing. I tried to incorporate finger-picked country blues themes underneath the beautiful primary themes Cherif brought to the songs; Chiaki, a professional dixieland jazz musician, held down the lower register with a mix of traditional and funked up jazzy bass lines on both his tuba and serpent - a medieval predecessor of the tuba that he told me is now having a resurgence in its popularity.

Needless to say, this was an experience memorable for both the challenge of working with these musicians and the sheer beauty of the music we were making. I cannot describe how lucky I feel to have played this music that I have listened to for years with my dad and never imagined I would have a chance to play. After over an hour of this, we decided to meet again on Saturday to play some more and possibly record through a single room mic onto a minidisc (recordings possibly forthcoming). I went back to the bar in Lavapies on Saturday and we worked on the same songs we'd played the day before as well as a couple of new ones closer to their embryonic stages; this gave us the opportunity to work on even more of a mezcla than the previous day. We sat down for a cup of coffee afterwards and discussed music in general, life in Madrid for a musician, and the girls that were passing by the window. Before we parted ways we spoke of putting on a concert at Viviana's bar (called Lavartebar) sometime in April. ¡Eso sería de la puta madre!

It is a sign of the magic and reality of Madrid that just 20 minutes away tens of thousands or right-wing and conservative-leaning Spaniards bussed in from all over the country were at the Puerta de Alcala to protest the release of an ETA leader convicted of being responsible for the deaths of 15 people in bomb attacks to a his home town to recuperate. Organized by the right-wing Partido Popular, the demonstrations have a distinct nationalist tenor, with many protestors using the Spanish flag, generally rarely seen in this country, as an equivalent to a poster registering their dissatisfaction with the government. The constant bickering - the rhetoric of this ongoing spat regarding ETA is filled with words challenging the fundamentals of the state - is in many ways classic Spanish passion. I'm currently making my way through Ghosts of Spain: Travels through a country's hidden past written by Giles Tremlett, a correspondent for The Guardian. In the book he remarks on the way that current political conflicts often replicate and develop the rarely-spoken debates of the Franco years and the transición. At the very least, these intertwined stories of fierce, inflammatory political debate, immigration and art are a reflection of the reality of a modern Spain that is in some ways all too similar to those years and at the same time a world all of its own. While the pijos (rough translation: pretentious elites) were ruffling their feathers at the Puerta de Alcala, the bums were drinking from boxes of wine in the Plaza de Lavapies, locals were enjoying the sun and eating food outside the tiny ethnic restaurants and bars that line the streets of Lavapies, and I was fully engaged in the musical exchange of my life.

holy hell

Alright, I really dropped the ball and stopped posting for nearly a month. Apologies to my millions of loyal readers. Of note, I spent a weekend on the island of Tenerife in the Canary Islands during the international celebration of carnaval with my program footing the bill. Pretty amazing. I have a bunch of really great pictures of the parade that I will put up on my still-in-its-embryonic-stages-flickr account. Long overdue pictures from Andalucia will also be up shortly.

This weekend was undoubtedly the best of my time in Spain so far. Spent Friday night checking out a few different classic Spanish flamenco bars. There weren't any espectaculos, it was more just flamenco music coming from the speakers and a bunch of Spanish flamenco fans hanging out. On Saturday I began my two-day (thus far) residency in the Parque de Buen Retiro, the main park in the city. I played and sang for almost three hours, joined by a friend on saxophone for the second half of that time. Between Saturday and a return engagement earlier today I managed to earn close to a much-needed 40 euros.

On Saturday I was approached by a guy who had been listening to me play and he invited me to some sort of jam session in a garage in the neighborhood of Lavapies. Knowing that the usual suspects who I might bring along would be occupied, and having planned on staying in to relax and do some homework, my more conservative instincts were overwhelmed by curiosity. Needless to say, I ended up in what is an illegal bar (the owners were constantly looking out for police) talking a colorful cast of characters including an older American expatriate who asked to be called "Rusty" with whom I watched the full lunar eclipse, the former harmonica player for Manu Chao's original band, Mano Negra, and the Zimbabwean son of Oliver Mtukudzi's manager. Managed to play a few songs of my own and listen to a few different groups play a bunch of fun, laid back, latin-tinged rock. Music and merriment for all involved (until the owners got scared that the police were around and started shutting down the place).

In other musical news, I may be playing bass with a Senegalese kora player I've run into a couple different nights and I'm in touch with a group that puts on monthly open mic nights in the neighborhood of La Latina.

I'm currently in the midst of midterms and booking lodging for the most incredible spring break ever - two weeks in Paris, Morocco (Marrakech, Essaouira, Fez, Rabat and Casablanca) and Lisbon.

I've continued to write music reviews for Big Yawn. Here are links to my two most recent reviews:
Lucinda Williams - West
The High Llamas - Can Cladders

art and war

So on Friday I visited two different exhibits related to the Spanish civil war. The first was in the Reina Sofia museum, which is part of the trifecta of the major art museums in Madrid (the Prado and the Thyssen-Bornemisza are the other two), and was called "Revistas y Guerra, 1936-1939." The primary thrust of the exhibit was to show the art of propaganda materials in magazines, newspapers and other kinds of popular literature put out by all sides of the war. What this means is you get a kind of distillation of almost all major political movements at the time (communism, anarchism, fascism, bourgeois liberalism) and more regionally-specific movements (i.e. Catalan separatism) into visual propaganda. What was most interesting to me were the competing images of women in the exhibit and the apparent importance of these images to the production of propaganda. Communist propaganda was almost exclusively the image of a male countryside worker or a strong woman posing as a worker / possible soldier, while the fascist propaganda was all about the woman as a mother and protector of the traditional family (the "sagrada familia" if you will). In a war that became so much about proxy armies for different world powers and asinine infighting among different supposedly ideological movements, the power of this ideologically-oriented propaganda was pretty interesting to see.

The second exhibit about foreign newspaper reportage on the war was at the Cervantes Institute. It featured articles by reporters from Portugal, England, Russia and the United States and it was most interesting to see how the reporters were able to get much closer to the battles than reporters in the current war in Iraq, for example. On the other hand, much of the writing was unabashedly written from the bubble of the journalist corps, with a number of pieces describing life in fancy hotels in Madrid as bombs fall and fighting takes place just outside. The exhibit featured writers such as Ernest Hemingway and George Orwell, along with a fascinating piece by Langston Hughes written for a black newspaper based out of Baltimore about the plight of Moorish fighters on the fascist side (Franco enlisted a number of African troops to fight for his side). What the exhibit makes clear is how each foreign writer is perhaps most interested in reporting the facts of the war in a way most relevant to their audience. Relevance rather than pure objectivity seems to be the order of the day. I can't say I necessarily have a problem with that, but it's interesting to see the effect of those kinds of interests in such vivid display.

An unrelated exhibit that I also visited was a retrospective Roy Lichtenstein at the Fundación Juan March, which is about a five minute walk from my apartment. What was really awesome about this exhibit was the way it was laid out so that you can see how Lichtenstein drew direct inspiration for his work from painters like Matisse, Picasso (a lot) and Van Gogh, among others. His annotated books about works by these painters, along with studies for various paintings, show how he put his unmistakeable imprint on his own reenvisioning of these works. I've always liked what I've seen of his paintings, but this gave me an even greater appreciation for an artist who clearly values using the art of the past to create something entirely his own. Haha, look no further than Bob Dylan for the best example of that! Yeah, so I guess what I'm saying is Lichtenstein = Dylan.

Anyway, maybe I should start doing my first writing assignment for class this semester...

¡que pena!

Alright, sorry about the long break between posts to anyone who might have been following this blog with bated breath. Just trying to learn the big city is all!

Anyway, I've spent the past week and a half trying to figure out what exactly is going on in this city. What does that consist of, you might ask. A couple of concerts, a fair number of bars, a few museum exhibits have been the order of business thus far. Last Thursday I ended up talking to a guy from Barcelona who puts on some form of clown performance about Spanish politics and the lives of Spanish artists. I won't comment on the coherence of that conversation (on the part of either participant), but the fact remains that the conversation happened. I think it ended with both of us shaking our hands muttering "¡Que pena!" ("What a shame"). On Saturday I saw a concert put on by Howe Gelb, the leader of the Tuscon, AZ - based band Giant Sand. While he could be criticized for being a little too weird for the mere sake of being weird, he is clearly a talented musician and performer. The concert, which was at this place called Neu!Club (from what I understand Neu! is a German kraut-rock band from the 70s), definitely had the highest concentration of Spanish hipsters I've seen thus far. The whole scene was kind of awkward, with the language barrier impeding some of the give and take that might have taken place with an English-speaking audience. The crowd was a lot more quiet and respectful than similar American audiences, but I have to wonder how much of that was just that people couldn't figure out what to say in their limited English.

I've managed to begin to check out the bars in neighborhoods beyond the hyper-touristy Sol area, which are a lot more to my liking. Both La Latina (that's where the clown was) and the whole Chueca/Tribunal area seem to have some fun places. I'm still exploring so hopefully I'll get more of a sense of what the city has to offer in that regard.

In somewhat unrelated news, I've started writing CD reviews for a music website based in DC called BigYawn. You can find my first review here. I also wrote a couple of blurbs for the site's top 50 of 2006. #31 and #18 are mine. I see their latest interview with a band on the homepage (link is on the right) is with The Harlem Shakes, who opened up an Olde Club show last semester and proceeded to trash my apartment after the show. They stole our paprika! Don't you worry, we ended up recovering all of our stolen spices, sheets, etc.

"rock"-earé el casba

Sweet - just bought plane tickets to spend 9 nights in Morocco with a friend from my program during our spring break. Still have to plan the rest of the break. Lisbon, Barcelona and Paris are all on the table at this point. Regardless, Morocco should be pretty incredible.
In other news, while Madrid has been pretty awesome, by far the most middling part of the stay has to be my classes. I don't know the explanation for this, but some of my professors seem to absolutely love the sound of their own voice at the expense of showing even a passing interest in the students they're teaching. Maybe I'm just used to the relatively more interactive style of even the most traditional-style professors I've had at Swat (i.e. Lillian Li's survey of Chinese civilization), but it seems like pedagogical practices have some universal components that go deeper than cultural differences. Without any interaction it often seems like the point of the class is kind of lost, particularly if the class is concerned with the arts, where individual responses to the works are key to their relevance as something to be studied in the first place.

Enough complaining though. Life in Madrid is a lot of fun. Saturday afternon I was just walking around, passed by the Reina Sofia and said to myself and a couple of friends, "Let's go check out some Picasso." Minutes later I'm standing in front of "Guernica" - 'nuff said. Had my fair share of the truly insane nightlife - spending my first night/morning getting home at 7 am after a mix of bars, jazz clubs and dance clubs. I don't think I can do that on a regular basis, but it can be pretty damn fun once in a while. Just found out about a possible Howe Gelb concert this weekend at some club, so that looks to be on tap for the more immediate future.

a good goddamn

It is freezing here. Not only was it snowing as I walked home last night at 3 am, but it was snowing in the middle of the day! I did not come to spain for snow! Anyway, going on a mysterious outing with "Spanish students" to "Madrid" in a little while. I have no idea what that means, but that's what the program told us to do ... And I always listen to orders!

versión original sin diálogo

Just went with a friend to see a new animated film by a filmmaker from Galicia named Miguelanxo Prado called De Profundis, apparently named after a play by Oscar Wilde. I'd read about it this weekend in El Pais and figured it was worth a try. There wasn't any dialogue, so it was more like an extended visual depiction of a sailor/mermaid love story set to music by Nani García, which was performed by the Symphony Orchestra of Galicia. I'm not sure, but based on my memories from my class called "Culturas de España" that I took freshman year, the themes of the movie were rooted in Galician mythology. All the characters had long blue lines drawn down their faces (which I'm pretty sure is some of kind of Galician symbol) and the whole story is based around the sea, which has particular significance for the people of the northwestern coastal province. Though the movie sometimes dragged, it was interesting visually, as was the music.

Yesterday I was eating with my host mother and I asked her about her political views. I'd spoked with a friend of mine on the program who told me that her host mother had expressed grave doubts about the involvement of Al-Qaeda in the March 11, 2004 bombings at the Atocha train station in Madrid. Given this previous conversation, I was not entirely surprised when my host mother said she thought that the bombings were done by a mix of people of from the Basque separatist group ETA and people from Al-Qaeda. This may seem laughable (and to be honest, I find it somewhat ridiculous myself), but there still appears to be a lot of mystery surrounding those bombings for many Spaniards. Directly after the bombings, the Partido Popular, then the ruling party, declared that ETA was responsible. It soon became clear that this was highly unlikely and that Al-Qaeda was more likely involved. The PP was voted out in large part due to frustrations with its lies about the 11-M bombings, as well as frustration with Spain's involvement in the war in Iraq, which was perceived to have been a direct cause for Al-Qaeda's targeting of Spain. The socialist party, which had been trailing slightly in the polls then won the election in the wake of the bombings. Needless to say, my host mother, who expressed her sympathies for the PP, is still skeptical. However, she is clearly not the only one. In looking through a few bookstores the past couple of days, a book called something like "Truths about the 11-M Bombings" seems to be a best seller.

The current political climate is unlikely to heal the wounds of that time. Now the PP and PSOE are constantly sniping at each other after new bombings by ETA at the Madrid airport a few weeks ago. The PSOE had signed a cease-fire with ETA, which was broken after these new bombings. While the PP is calling for cutting off dialogue with ETA, the PSOE is trying to maneuver to keep the lines of communication open. My host mother declared, "All we want is to live in peace." It's hard for me to see how peace will come from no dialogue, even though the current dialogue doesn't seem to be working well. Of course, this kind of debate is not unique to Spain, but it is interesting to see it play out in what is in many ways a more economically developed and philosophically peace-time oriented country. This is in contrast to countries like Israel or the United States that are relatively militarized and don't have as much of a feel of peace-time prosperity as Spain (or at least that's my general sense now).

¡torpe!

My first post actually in Spain. Arrived last Thursday and, after groggily getting through a day with my host family, went off on a week-long trip through the southern province of Anadalucia. On the first full day we left Madrid at 8 am and made it to Granada, home of the famous Moorish castle called the Alhambra. It is an incredibly beautiful complex of middle-ages Muslim architecture, with lots of patios, water, and intricate decorations of geometric designs and calligraphy of Arabic verses from the Koran. Then a few days in the resort town of Nerja, which is pretty dead except for a bunch of old British tourists. Most nights consisted of finding the only bar open on a given night to be totally dead and enlivening it slightly with the entrance of our entire 40 person-strong program. A day trip to Malaga had us visiting Pablo Picasso's birthplace and a museum of his work that was fairly barebones, but, as with almost anything concerning Picasso, interesting and fun. Another trip to Ronda was focused around the Plaza de Toros there, as Ronda is one of the birthplaces of modern bullfighting; today's rules, which make the spectacle more dangerous for the torero, were first developed in Ronda. Hemingway also famously gave Ronda a shout-out in one of his books (our guide said that it's in For Whom The Bell Tolls, but I don't remember reading about Ronda when I read that book). After those three days it was on to Sevilla where we visited a cathedral (one of many more to come this semester, I'm sure) and went on a horse-driven carriage ride through the city. The highlight was probably an awesome dinner at a restaurant right on the river that runs through the middle of the city. Tapas, steak and flan - pretty perfect. The final stop was in Cordoba, which is home to the famous middle ages-era mosque, which was then converted to a cathedral to represent the Catholic domination over the Muslims. Cordoba is also the birthplace of Maimonides aka Rambam, who is memorialized by a statue in the Jewish area of the town. Now I'm finally in Madrid for more than just a few hours. More about that later once I begin to get settled.

The group itself seems like a good group of people with at least some who I can see as wanting to do the kinds of things I want to do in the city/country. Getting to know people has been unlike any other experience I've had getting to know people, as the program has a rule that everyone must speak only in Spanish. So not only are you trying to get over the normal awkwardness involved in getting to know new people, but you're dealing with the continued awkwardness of speaking in a foreign language that you only kind of know. As we came to say in what is really a bad translation of the word awkward: ¡torpe! (it's meaning is closer to clumsy than awkward, but it works). I have to admit that I occasionally experienced the same kind of fear I had when I first arrived in Barcelona in the spring of my senior year to live there for three months. Not knowing anybody in an environment that is in many ways alien can be pretty terrifying, but at least I've done it before. I think I generally feel more comfortable with myself than I did then (a lot of that confidence came from that trip, I think), so the fear was a lot less acute and lengthy than three years ago. However, I would be naive if I didn't expect that emotional experience to be ongoing.

From a cultural historical point of view, given that I've just visited a number of important sites of cultural clash in Spanish history, the representation of this history seems in flux. Nowhere is this more clear than at the mosque at Cordoba. While the official literature at the site refers to it as the Cathedral of Cordoba, everyone else refers to it as either "the mosque" or "the mosque and cathedral." Given the general liberalism of Spain, this might seem anachronistic Christian paternalism, which it is, but I suppose it makes sense in that this country is only 30-odd years removed from a Catholic, fascist dictatorship. Of perhaps deeper concern should be the general rhetoric of the Catholic-Muslim clash in Spain. Words like the Catholic "reconquista" (reconquest) and the Muslim "invasion" are loaded with understandings of who is actually Spanish and who is an outsider. Based on my readings and experiences in the country now and three years ago, racism is a big problem here. In Nerja I spoke to a young Morrocan who had been living in Spain for five years. When I told him that I was going to be studying in Madrid, he responded, "Don't go there. They're all racist there." Not that I'm taking him entirely literally, but his point of view does seem to resonate with everything else I've heard or seen. Like most of Europe, Spain is dealing with the difficulties of the immigration of a poor and often darker-skinned group of people. Given Spain's history, however, the way people discuss its history (and particularly the terms they use) likely has particular resonance for this modern social and political problem.

Alright, that's enough for now. Coming soon: my host mother's theory on the March 11, 2004 bombings in Madrid, first impressions of Madrid, spending all my money on Spanish guitars...

to live is to fly (on an airplane)

Alright, flying off tomorrow and the only thing that's really getting me nervous is that I probably haven't packed what I need for this semester. Taking my guitar with me is a hassle in this respect, but it's something that has to be done. Not much more I can do now. I guess I should at least be thankful the visa went through. Part of me wishes that we would just go straight to Madrid instead of having a week-long orientation trip in the southern coastal town of Nerja. On the other hand it should be fun to get to know the other people on the program in a more relaxed setting.

I finished up a bit of business before this trip today. There are a couple new songs on my myspace music page (see the link on the right) that I recorded this past October with Joe Kille. I had planned to do some more recording this winter, but I didn't get to the point where I felt like any of it was finished properly. The new songs are called "Broken Down Engine" and "Where You Call Home."

I also picked up The Corner by David Simon and Ed Burns. Those two are also the creators of The Wire, which I just finished watching today. I'll write a longer post about both the show and the book once I get done with the book. The show has really deepened my understanding and empathy for what appears to be the most intractable problem in the United States: the urban underclass. Not only does the show have a wonkish appeal in its focus on complicated political and societal problems, but it has a highly dramatic appeal in its wide cast of interesting and moving characters. I don't think I've ever enjoyed watching a TV show (or possibly even a movie) as much as this. Good thing there's still one last season to look forward to (HBO recently renewed the show for its fifth season, which Simon says he had originally conceived as its last).

el principio

Alright, so I'm starting this blog in anticipation of my upcoming semester abroad in Madrid. The purpose is generally to chronicle the whole deal for myself and possibly others (if they/you find my life and thoughts so interesting as to frequent this page at all). I'll try to keep the content clean and accessible for those of all ages and general persuasions, but I guess I can't make any promises to adhere to anybody's tastes except my own.

I'll start off the new year with a short link to the Washington Post's annual "out/in" list. These lists are always mindlessly fun to read and generally a bit stupid. I guess I can count myself "in" on at least one count ("crazy The Wire fans"), as I've been making my way through the show the last few months and will probably start watching my illegally downloaded episodes from the most recent season (four) in the next week or so. I expect that I'll end up posting more about that in the near future. I guess I approve of "beatlesesque" being "out" and "springsteenesque" being "in." Of course that's really just a reference to The Killers and The Hold Steady blatantly aping Springsteen on their new albums to probably stupid (I can't say I really even heard the single more than once) and pretty good effect, respectively. But what to say about "abstinence" being "out" and "premarital sex" being "in." Was "abstinence" ever "in"? Isn't everybody advocating "abstinence" having illicit sex with young children anyway?

In regards to things actually relating to Madrid, visa troubles may be on the horizon, as I definitely submitted my application pretty late in the game and am now going to have wade through annoying Spanish bureaucracy to get it in time. Regardless, I'm looking forward to this whole thing immensely. The past semester at Swarthmore was probably my best thus far (both academically and personally in many ways) so I feel like I'm taking off from there on a good note. Being able to study some interesting things — the plan is to take classes on Don Quijote, modern Spanish art, Spanish theater, and something called "Spain and the process of European unity," all in Spanish — in a relatively laid back setting with time to really get to know a big European city is a lucky experience to have and I plan on taking full advantage. I can't say I'm nervous (excluding visa issues) — more just interested and excited to get the whole thing started.