Twilight and into the Next Day

Not a Ring Cycle to ‘keep’, I think.

I have just (well, yesterday, though it stretched into today by the time the curtain came down) sat through The Twilight of the Gods and thus have seen the whole of the Liceu’s present Ring Cycle.  I know when confronted with such a towering masterpiece of musical genius (though very much a flawed man) I should set forth my analysis and remember my academic pretentions and write something perceptive and appreciative.  Perhaps I will.  But another time.

            For me this Cycle was marked by a pleasing amount of real fire and a confusing amount of rubbish.  I mean the latter in no pejorative sense, but rather in a literal one.  The reforging of Northung, in a previous part of the cycle, was accomplished in a junkyard with the central prop being a dilapidated small caravan which exploded.  The Rhine Maidens moved their sinuous way through tyres, a bath and other oddments that I took to be rubbish thrown into the Rhine, until Siegfried seemed to be able to move about through it with equal ease.  The Norns appeared to be char ladies with mops with the ropes of destiny being looped around stacked furniture which looked as though it was in some depository, and so on.

            The production was subfusc with gods and demi gods wearing ordinary to the point of tedium clothes.  Seeing who was wearing heels and who was wearing flats and why became one of the more interesting design questions to ponder during the more tedious arias, because, let’s face it, it is very difficult to maintain full attention for hour after hour in what rapidly becomes and uncomfortable chair.

            But such concerns were forgotten when the transcendent chorus of the Liceu came on stage during the second and third acts of the opera.  Not that the orchestral playing before then was not of a superlative quality, but the wall of sound that the Liceu chorus produces sends shivers down the spine!

            It was Brünnhilde’s night and deservedly so; her ovation was well merited.  She had some opposition from the bass singing the role of Hagan, but the star of this performance of Götterdämmerung was Brünnhilde.  Perhaps, in another post, when I have more time I will give a more considered view and actually write in the names of the great and the guilty in this production!

I have been backsliding this week.  My diet has taken a hit because of the visit of Maggie.  I felt it would be churlish to insist on agua fria when they were buying a bottle of wine, so I did not and drank avidly.  But this is a new sort of avidity for me where one bottle was sufficient for three and at one notorious point in the early evening I put my hand over my glass to refuse a refill!  Self-denial can go little further.

            It was excellent seeing an old friend (and her friend, David) again, not only for the news that she had, but also for getting reacquainted with a conversational style that I have not heard for a frighteningly large number of years.

            We are both older, but we talk as we always did and it is the way that the talk is structured, the way that we pause and go off at tangents, the cadences in the voice that bring back so much more than mere information.  It was true time travel in the best way possible for me, via talking!

            

And Maggie bought a copy of my book, Flesh Can Be Bright, so I count the whole evening great success.  I look forward to keeping more closely in touch with her, but with her sort of event filled life, it might be difficult.  With golf, bridge, culture and travel she is constantly on the move and constantly ‘doing’ and I will have to run pretty hard to keep up with her.  But worth trying I think.

            One practical result of her visit has been to remind me that various arts organizations around the world now broadcast some of their live performances to cinemas.  The NT does, though I am not yet sure if they have an ‘outlet’ anywhere in Barcelona.  I know that there are ballet and opera opportunities, and I will keep my eyes open to try and expand my ‘live’ performance quota.  I used to go to orchestral performances in Barcelona until my opera going claimed my time and cash.  There is no reason why I cannot do both, especially as the Liceu is much more flexible about the changing of seats for their subscribers nowadays.  This really is a note to self and a call to action!

On the degree front, we are now all waiting for our pro-formas to be returned.  These are the OU approved ways of letting you tutor know what it is that you have decided to write your ‘long essay’ on for the last piece of work in the course.  I have chosen to study a painter called Lluís Dalmau whose most famous painting is called The Virgin of the Councillors and was painted 1443-1445.  

Virgin of the «Consellers», ca. 1443-1445, now in the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya.

This is one of only two works which are unequivocally by him: one in Barcelona and the other, down the road in St Boi.

            My pro-forma outlined my approach and cited works which I will use in the final essay.  The tutor will look at what I have written and make suggestions which I will then take on board by modifying my approach in response to her guidance and then write the essay.  All simple and straightforward.  Not.  You only have to read the forums for our course to see the panic which is setting in and the desperation which drips from some posts!  I maintain a lofty position of superiority at the moment because I have found lots of references and I am ahead of the reading requirements of the main course which is still going on.

            This will, of course all change as soon as I start writing the last normal essay of the course and start on the long essay.  I will probably not post on the forums, but I will walk up and down in my shockingly untidy ‘office’ on the third floor – and will look longingly at the terrace as soon as the sun comes out!

            Tomorrow a meeting with Suzanne, a few art exhibitions and a menu del dia in MNAC – overpriced, but worth it!

Aftermath

corruption

Still reeling from the onslaught against the Spanish language that my interview yesterday represented, Toni has decided to produce an English translation of what exactly I said. He is dressing up this enterprise in the guise of an exercise in IT which aids his course, but I know it is part of his attempt to expose my astonishing lack of linguistic ability in any language other than English to the wider world! Luckily my self confidence (bordering, some would say, on downright arrogance) was enough, not only to provide me with sufficient reserves of energy to get through the interview, but also was sufficient to encourage my positive enjoyment of the whole experience!

          People will soon be able to judge for themselves as the whole débâcle will be readily available to enjoy and digest!

The interesting times in which we live have now extended to the immediate political situation here in Catalonia. The local government has taken the first steps in declaring Independence from Spain. The whole situation is complicated by the fact that the acting president of Catalonia is tainted by his close association with Puyol (the ex president of Catalonia) who is fighting against the avalanche of overwhelmingly damming evidence which demonstrates that he and his clan have been little more than a “criminal organisation” (as they have already been termed in the press and by some legal authorities) and their criminality is being used by the terminally corrupt national government of PP to deflect attention from their own nefarious doings so that the population at large fears that an Independent Catalonia will be corruption writ large.

          The FACT that there are numerous criminal cases pending which demonstrate with shocking clarity the bare faced rapacity of the ruling PP party has now been shunted into the background of the general population's consciousness and they are concentrated instead on the very real threat of Catalonia breaking away (totally and utterly illegally according to the hands-wet-with-blood government of Spain) and the breathtakingly audacious corruption of notable Catalans. Thus showing clearly and indisputably that Catalonia must be kept securely in the safe hands of irremediably rapacious ignoramuses which form the so-called legal government of Spain. The fact that this group of kleptomaniacs and compulsive liars can even think about presenting themselves as some sort of legitimate force for good just goes to show that any old group of mendacious curs can get away with anything as long as they keep their nerve and keep on lying as proficiently as they have been doing for the whole time that they have been in what they like to term 'government.'

          When I say that I have more respect for the Evil Old Bitch (you know who I mean) than for Bromo, my name for the so-called President of Spain, it just goes to show how much contempt I have for the be-suited cretins who occupy positions of power in the present sad joke that is Spanish government.

          I tend to think that I do more work trying to attribute Machiavellian intelligence to the way that events are presented by the dead heads in PP than they actually deserve. With the build up to the General Election on the 20th December, they are either being deucedly clever or astonishingly stupid in the way that their strategy is developing.

           Having listened to some of the half-brains who seem to speak for this apology for a government with some sort of assumed authority, I can hardly believe that they have a coherent political brain cell to spark to action, yet it is possible to work out a terminally cynical approach to the electorate which speaks of some sort of primal intelligence.

           As an intelligent member of PP is an obvious oxymoron, I have to admit (and indeed we know because of the way that their finances have been laid out to an unbelieving public) that they have enough cash from various crooked sources to buy in the intelligence that they do not possess themselves. And shame on those with Neanderthal Plus brains who have sold themselves to the amoeba-like slime that sits on the PP benches in parliament to further their despicable causes, i.e. themselves.

           So, at the moment, we here in Catalonia are waiting for the political parties that make up the majority in our local parliament for independence to come to some sort of agreement about who is going to be president. The last vote for Artur Mas to be president was defeated – and rightly so. But what the immediate future holds is difficult to say. Bromo has stated that he, himself, personally will not allow the break up of Spain – which is a bit like saying that the magma refuses to allow the volcano to blow. He and his party seem to have gone out of their way to antagonise Catalans and then they act with shocked surprise when Catalans respond as if they are ungrateful for their abuse.

          When I first arrived in Catalonia I was all in favour of a united Spain, feeling that the country would be much more powerful and coherent if all the constituent parts of the country were linked together. I still feel that is true, but the present PP government with the dictatorial use of their absolute majority have changed my mind markedly. PP have gone out of their way to make it clear that they despise Catalonia, only valuing the money they can suck from the country. Well, enough is enough.

          PP and PSOE (the equivalent of Conservative and Labour in British terms) have colluded in the creation of a completely unconstitutional so-called king, they are colluding in the suppression of Catalan independence, they are colluding in the suppression of a multi-party democracy and, above all, they are colluding in maintaining the status quo to ensure their own position in the troughs that they have fed from for far too long. A plague, as the Bard rightly said, on both their houses.

           Spain has a democratic system whereby you vote for a 'list' of candidates for each political party. The number of votes given to each party determines the number of candidates 'elected' on each list. Thus, if you are candidate 1 on PP's list you are guaranteed a place in parliament, and so on down the list according to the number of votes cast. In other words the scheming, conniving, corrupt members of a party do not need to worry about a particular constituency to get elected; as long as they are near the top of the 'list' they will succeed. It also follows that individual members of the party owe more allegiance to the party rather than to any constituency made up of voters in a particular location.

          It also means that utterly disgraceful party hacks like Rita from Valencia, who ripped off the people of that region to satisfy her own inflated opinion of what she felt she deserved, are not cast into the otter darkness (with wailing and gnashing of teeth) after her party (PP!) is justly thrown out, but is instead promoted to the Senate, where the overblown apology for honesty can continue to milk the state!

          Whatever you think of Cameron and his exclusive brethren of upper class take-it-all opportunists, they look like honesty personified when compared with their openly rapacious parallels in Spain!

Peregrinating Kate of the Barcelona Poetry Group is going back to California for the winter, but her crown as leader of our group has been gifted to another member who is going to take over the task of ensuring that the meetings continue until the middle of December when we will have a Christmas recess until the middle of January.

           Last night's meeting was on the theme of 'Returning' and I read out the opening page of Rebecca as my contribution to the initial responses. Sandy read a stunning poem which referenced her post traumatic shock syndrome from her time as a military doctor. It's poems like that which make me even more eager to read through her latest book which has accompanying poems by her sister. The publication date is December 1st and that is something to look forward to as I have demanded that her sister in the states send copies to Spain as soon as it is published!

           Kate brought up the idea of producing a book which could be a co-operative effort from members past and present of the poetry group. I have thought about this and so was able to share my ideas about how to make it a practical reality. This is something which can see a publication by the Spring (or more likely early summer) of next year. I hope that I will be allowed to edit the publication and see it through its various stages of production.

          The OU course continues and I am finding out just how little I know about the Renaissance – which I have said before, but each new day merely shows how superficial my previous knowledge was!

          This week sees me making a tentative start on the long three-part essay-like assignment that we have to complete. Other events and meetings are stacking up in the time left for its completion so I will have to exercise a certain amount of discipline about how I spend my time if it is to be done to my satisfaction.

          Another factor claiming time is the work (now delayed by still sitting in a folder on my desk) about the early history of swimming in public pools, which should, in time, link up with the previous work that I have done on Guevara and his paintings. It is getting to the stage where I will need to produce one of those 'fantastic' timetables that I am only forced into drawing up when there is already too little time left to do what I want to do. The notorious one that I drew up for my finals actually proved to me that I didn't have anything like enough time left to revise with anything like the thoroughness that I had intended to use. Still, lots to do – including filling out the absurdly long form for my pension. Though, thinking about it, I was able to use it as part of a poem for my next book!

Now, enough writing indulgence, time to start work.

When in doubt, read poetry!

The Way Ahead?

The relentless wave of injustice and blatant lying continues in this country.  The next election is going to be crucial in the modern development of Spain.  I am no expert, but it seems to me that the democratic process has not been under such sustained threat since the fall of Franco.

            The present government is a total disgrace, that 20% of the population can still express an intention to vote for the bunch of self seeking contemptible liars is absolutely astonishing.

            With the rise of the C’s party, which to be seems like a crypto-PP excuse for a political organization, there is a very real threat that tactical voting and plain ignorance could lead to PP uniting with the C’s and forming another government!

            People should realise that a vote for the C’s is a vote for PP and continued corruption and denial of fundamental human rights.  Already PP has pushed through education reforms with NO other party’s support.  They have altered basic citizen rights on protest and organization with NO other party’s support.  They put politics, their own politics, before the law, the police, and the citizens of this country.  They are a continuing shame to anyone who supports concepts of justice, equality and fairness – and they should have resigned years ago! 

Let’s hope that Spain has the informed self-interest to get rid of them in the General Election.

Another tongue!

The first three poems in my Autumn Trees sequence have now been translated into Catalan and are printed ready to be ‘looked at’ by Catalan speaking members of the Poetry Group tomorrow.  This is an important step forward in making the idea in Flesh Can Be Bright a reality!

            The other parts of the project are slowly taking shape, though what I thought was a more than generous time scale, seems to be getting tighter by the day!  I have plans to deal with most permutations of what might finally occur, but I would be more than gratified to have everything work out as originally planned.

            There are a couple of poems on the go at the moment; one is largely worked out, but the ending is proving tricky.  The other is plodding along an is the sort of thing that will come together with concentrated effort as many of the creative bits have been done and it is ‘just’ a matter of putting it all together.

            Well, something should be done in the next couple of days and, tomorrow,  Wednesday is also the day of my Poetry Group and that is usually the opportunity to respond to a stimulating theme and start the germ of another idea.

            Things are going well as far as The Eloquence of Broken Things is concerned, which is scheduled to be published in October 2016.  The only dangerous thing is to give myself the luxury of thinking that it is well over a year away and there is time to do as much as I like!  This is where time melts away and everything is eventually done in a rush.  I do not intend to be caught out!

Reader’s Card

I have now been given an ‘extension’ to be British Library Reader’s Card.  This is slightly odd as the last time that I used my card must be over thirty years ago!  Still, rather like the OU system, with the British Library, if you are on the system once you tend to stay there until, presumably, you are “Destroyed by enemy bombing during the war” (which I once had for a book published in the 1960s not being delivered to my desk in the Old Reading Room!)

            I have visited the new British Library, but my visit in May will be the first time that I will have used it as a library.  I will have to be canny about its use as I will only be there for a few days and the number of books that you can order is limited.  I will have to use the rules of book ordering to its full if I am to get the full benefit. 

I am looking forward to the experience and am very impressed by the on line catalogue actually giving you how long the book will take to get to you! 

It will be interesting to see how this all works out in practice.

Browning

The continued and more hysterical the warnings about the dangers of sunbathing become, the more they are tucked securely away in the corner of the mind marked ‘non used on voyage’.

            I have always favoured my father’s skin colouring rather than my mother’s and tend to tan relatively easily.

            There was a time when I used to shed skin with the facility of a snake – the tell-tale itch on the back generally leading to sheets of skin peeling away leaving me looking like a piebald creature.  Those days seem to be over, though I think that it has more to do with a born-again approach to moisturising than anything else.

            I also think that the change of sun tan lotion might have something to do with it also.  The family cream was Boots own Cooltan which I chiefly remember as a white cream which stubbornly refused to be rubbed into the skin and being protected (by one’s mother, of course) was a lengthy tactile experience!  And it didn’t really work, as skin fell away in chunks – though one always regarded that as a prelude to brownness as once the outer layers were stripped away it revealed the eventual tan underneath.  Though as I recall it the skin was always white underneath and it was the brown skin which fell to earth!

            Ironically, the brownest I have ever been was after a holiday to Scandinavia, and more especially Finland!  No accounting for sunshine!

Parking

The epic restructuring of the leisure centre car park continues with a second (unused) entrance now being opened up with consequent access road being created to link this entrance with the main road.  So far, every thing that the workmen do seems to create several other ‘things’ that have to be done before the new and improved, all-concrete, electronic-access car park gets back to use for the paying members!

            I think that most of us have now accepted that, in effect, there is no car park and have adapted accordingly.  In my case, as long as it doesn’t rain.  I am sort-of enjoying biking it, but this will change a the first sign of dampness.  Or winter as it is sometimes known!

            I have not yet had the opportunity to cycle when the car park is open, so that testing time is still ahead.

            Sad to say, I am looking forward to having a drink with my friend Caroline.  The sadness is nothing to do with her, I am looking forward to catching up on her news as we have not seen each other for a time, but sad because part of my excitement of seeing her is that I will be meeting her in a bar on the beach and it will be dark when we end our talk and then, gasp! I will have the opportunity not only to use my new lights on the bike, but also the flashing LED lights set into a niche on the back of my helmet!

            As I do not intend to go on any roads to get home, but to stick entirely to the paseo, this might seem like something of illuminated over-kill, but it makes me happy!  And biking home after drinking (not too much you understand) is all the justification that you need!

Whitman

Now to hunt through my poetry books to find the extract from Leaves of Grass that we are going to discuss tomorrow.  This is the nearest that I get to homework, as I don’t look at the work that I have to do for the OU course in the same way!

Poetry calls!

The little things in life

The smallest room

I do not usually feel drawn to disquisitions on toilets but my recent visit to Barcelona makes such a discussion inevitable.

            I usually stay, when in the city, in a dated hotel near the Liceu and just off the Ramblas.  Its cell-like rooms are basic, but as far as value for money is concerned for a city-centre hotel it is unbeatable.  And breakfast is included!

            As he days of roughing it are well and truly over for me, however basic the accommodation I do insist on en suite.  And the rooms in his hotel are.

            I have now stayed in a variety of the rooms that they offer and my quibbles are usually with the showers.  Either the fittings are unreliable or the availability of warm water is only available if you have the precision of a micrometre adjuster in your fingertips.

            With the room last night it was the toilet.  It is obvious (you only have to look at the ceiling mouldings) to see that the present arrangements of rooms have been cobbled together by cannibalising the originals.  In the case of the room in which I stayed last night the chief victim of the savaging of the original floor plan was found in the bathroom.

            Firstly it wasn’t a room, it was more of a raised wedge-ledge from the bedroom separated from it by a curtain!  The shower filled one end of the wedge (there was no door) and immediately next to it and virtually touching the wall was the toilet.

            One does not want to be indelicate, but there was not way that the toilet could be used by a sitting customer if any form of clothing was still about their person.  It was also necessary to do a form of seated splits with one foot in the shower tray.  No conducive to, um, anything really!

            But I will go back.  Hotel Peninsular offers a unique experience at an unbeatable price – and anyway, restaurants have loos!

Things poetic

The Holy Week poetry sequence has now stalled and there is a build up of notes and no finished results of complete poems.  I am confident that I can complete one of them tonight, but that still leaves me a day behind.  Never mind, I am sure that they will be worth the effort when they are finally done.  Hopefully.

Easter

The great question taking my wallet at the moment is whether or not to give in to commercialism and buy an Easter Egg or not.

            A number of consumer programmes that have told us that Easter Eggs are nothing more than a rip off are too many to ignore, but buying anything else always seems a bit mean.

            I think that I will probably do what I do best in situations like this, wander from shop to shop in a vain attempt to gauge value, and end up doing something entirely different.

Shopping – you know it makes sense!

I went into Lidl to buy a tub of their excellent Greek yogurt and came out with a gel cover for my bike seat, lights for back and front and a new helmet (with built in rear, detachable, flashing light) as I am now, much to Toni’s amused contempt, a born again bicycle rider.

            Necessity, in the form of the reconstruction of the parking area in the swimming pool and the complete lack of parking spaces, prompted me to get the bike out of retirement and use, over the last few weeks has changed me mind.  As the weather gets warmer, it becomes more of a pleasure to ride.  At least until the end of the summer, I am toying with the idea of using the bike even when I do not need to.

            Toying.  Not a final decision, you understand.  Not by any means.  Yet.

Flesh Can Be Bright

The book takes another step nearer completion, with one or two of the plans in place to cope with other plans possibly not working are now not needed as the plans which weren’t working might be operational once more.  

          As you probably don’t understand.