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Tuesday, January 21, 2003 There is a store up la Calle de Hortaleza (one of this barrio's main drags) toward Gran Vía that deals in pop culture stuff, stuff that is way guay (a local word for cool) -- Simpsons products of all kinds, South Park thingies, Halloween masks/costumes, horror movie paraphernalia, pyschedelic dreck. At this time the display windows are heavily weighted toward the Lord of The Rings, featuring scads of action figures, two different chess sets (one for the first film, one for The Two Towers) and a so-cheesy-looking-it's-almost-(but-not-quite)-cool plastic Sting sword. Meanwhile, down in local Metro stations, La Razón, one of the local rags from way over on the right side of the political spectrum, is running a promotion consisting of huge ads -- maybe 8' high by 4' across -- advertising a free Lord of The Rings Parchisi set, complete with six action figures. Not to be outdone, and opting for a highbrow approach, the leftie newspaper, El País just started a promotion in which they're pushing a 45-film collection of Spanish movies, one available every Sunday for something like 2 or 3 euros. The first film -- La Lengua de Las Mariposas (The Language of the Butterflies) -- available this past Sunday, was free. DVDs often seem to be available here at extremely reasonable prices, while the price of CDs has skyrocketed since the introduction of the euro a year ago -- from the equivalent of U.S. $11-$13 (in pesetas) to anywhere from 18-21 euros, at least at Madrid Rock, my local music outlet of choice. A hefty bit of inflation, that. I'm not counting the 8.99 bargain bins here, by the way, nor am I counting black market street sales of counterfeit CDs, widely available at 3 for 6 euros. I'm not a fan of pirating, which shafts the artists, but given the math (let's see -- 1 CD for 18 euros or 3 CDs for 6?) I can see why the black market vendors do brisk business. Between black market sales and the ubiquitous handbill people, huge amounts of sidewalk commerce go on in this part of the world. It would be easy to pick up anywhere from 10-20 handbills during the course of one's day, though I seem to have developed a force field that prevents the handbill folks from getting near enough to me to unload anything. Could be I walk too quickly, could be my path gets too conveniently serpentine when I pass one of them, could be I've developed a head tic that communicates a fast, firm "¡NO, gracias!" Whatever the case, I lately have to make an effort to get an ad handed to me, which I did earlier while walking along the major pedestrian thoroughfare between Sol and Callao. The handbill: "Tenemos el placer de invitarle al estreno en MADRID del GRAN FESTIVAL MUNDIAL del CIRCO" (We have the pleasure of inviting you to the opening in Madrid of the Grand World Festival of the Circus). Off to one side is a photo of a happy dude in a fancy robe-like outfit -- vaguely suggestive of clothing from The MYSTIC ORIENT; kind of an Arabic/Masonic/Chinese emperor thing. To his side is a large, glass container, maybe mid-thigh height, wide enough to fit a human body. And indeed, if you look closely you can see that there appears to be a person in there, all curled up contortionist-fashion. "CIRCO MUNDIAL," reads the text, "presenta por primara vez in Europea EL HOMBRE BOTELLA -- ZAMORATE! UN HOMBRE dentro de una BOTELLA!" (WORLD CIRCUS presents for the first time in Europe THE BOTTLE MAN -- ZAMORATE! A MAN inside a BOTTLE!) I'm actually considering making the trip out to Ventas to scope out this extravaganza. We'll see. I passed through Sol/Callao around 6 p.m. Dirty gray clouds traveled rapidly across the sky overhead, while the lowering sun turned the top two or three floors of nearby buildings a brilliant gold, an intense contrast with the dark sky. As I walked along the pedestrian way, I heard an accordion, realized some street musician was delivering a kickass rendition of St. James Infirmary. I spotted him standing by a building, out of the way, easy to miss. Madrileños streamed past as he played, on their way home or moving in and out of stores, taking advantage of the January sales. No one seemed to notice him, despite his truly fine work. It may be that without an amplifier, was too easily smothered by the ambient noise. I watched him for a while -- tall, slender, with long hair tied back and an unruly graying beard, dressed in flannel shirt, jeans, work boots -- finally tossing some money in his instrument case before heading slowly away. As I moved off, he finished up that number, started something more polka-ish. Not as distinctive as the previous tune, but he played the hell out of it just the same. rws 4:42 PM [+] |