|
Wednesday, February 05, 2003 Yesterday morning, a quarter to six. I woke to the sound of pounding. The kind of event that penetrates sleep in a way that one is actually unconscious when they first hear it. Like I was. Deeply, happily unconscious. As the pounding continued -- four repetitions, that first set, loud and insistent (the perfect way to wake up, know what I'm saying?) -- I began coming to, paddling my way up up from wherever I was to a muddled version of consciousness. In my initial stupor, the hubbub was so loud, so distinct that I assumed it must be someone pounding on my door. With a few seconds more to put things together I figured out it couldn't be, that the sound was wrong –- something heavy was striking something made of metal, not the thick wood of the old door to this piso. A few seconds later, more pounding. I'm listening, trying to figure out what the hell it is, not wanting to get out of bed to find out. So I don't. I roll over, pull the covers up, try to pretend it's not happening. Which of course has no effect on anything. The racket continues, apparently happening down on the street level, somewhere close by. A couple of voices call back and forth, the pounding gets faster, more intense. Eventually, I get up and shuffle to the bathroom to dump the ballast. On my way back I open a window, take a gander outside to see what the *@#%^!! is going on. What I observe is a line of cars parked in the street, bumper to bumper, four police patrol vehicles and one large unmarked small panel truck. At the head of that line, two more vehicles are pulled up into the small driveway that's situated at the near side of the plaza (la Plaza de Chueca) -– a spot used normally by delivery trucks bringing goods to the businesses that ring the plaza, the street being one lane wide with no available parking along this block. A police vehicle is parked there, behind it an older, beat-up looking civilian vehicle. A couple of local cops stand together at the head of the line of cars in the street, talking. One bystander, an old codger, stands nearby watching the scene, his expression a bit bewildered. The pounding has abated, a hefty male in a firefighter-style outfit walks back to the small truck parked in the street, carrying a maul. I have no idea what was up. The plaza is a gathering place for all kinds of folks and all kinds of activity, legal and, I'm sure, illegal. I'm not generally one of those who likes to hang about scenes like that staring, especially not in the pre-dawn a.m. I closed the window, went back to bed. Later that morning, when I left the house to take the ten-minute walk to the main post office, I passed through the plaza, spotting no visible evidence of the early morning hoo-ha. Just the normal scattering of people, with the addition of a group standing square in the middle of the space, a small film crew. I saw no equipment trucks, I suspect it was an either an indie project or a student film. A collection of seven film-crew types stood around a lone actor – one woman holding a boom mike, another working the sound, one person with a clapboard, one with a camera, the rest watching. A take got underway, the actor opened an envelope, pulled out a letter, went into a state of near shock as he read it, one hand going up to his head. He paused to look around, lost, absorbing whatever he'd read, then gathered himself and walked off toward the street. Cut. Two more crew members sat at one of the concrete benches that run in a line along the plaza's east side, bags for equipment and film canisters at their feet. One smoking, one holding a can of soda. Both watching the action, like the onlookers scattered around the plaza. It was one of those days where Madrid did its imitation of London. No rain, but plenty of dramatic-looking clouds streaming across the sky, allowing sunlight through now and then. Providing lots of variation in light and color as the day courses on, a cold wind pushing its way through the narrow streets whenever it felt like it, making windows rattle. A kind of weather I like, reminding me of times in London I've enjoyed. The sky is mostly clear today, with abundant sunlight, the wind calmer, milder. The film crew was out in the plaza again this morning, working with the same actor plus one or two more. I walked by at the end of a take, either the last one for a specific actor or a wrap for the day, the crew applauding when the actors finished up with the scene. The day's look is so different from yesterday's that it got me wondering how that might impact the filming. Maybe it won't. Maybe they're filming in black & white. The day not only looks different, it feels different and thank god for that. Yesterday pretty much went to hell in a battered, unupholstered handbasket after I got home around midday, becoming a kind of day I don't experience very often, with things out of whack everywhere, including my little laptop -- the center of my existence here, in some ways -- and in particular its mouse, which has behaved in progressively antisocial ways from the day I pulled the bugger kicking and screaming from its box several weeks back. Yesterday it simply didn't want to work, and finally stopped functioning, unmistakably going belly up. At which point, after several torturous, frustrating hours of slow mouse death, I put it out of its misery by unplugging it and whanging it against a nearby radiator a couple of times before literally ripping it apart, dumping the remains in the nearest trash container. Very satisfying. A well-timed primal can be both therapeutic and entertaining, though I to being glad there were no intruders with videocams on hand to record the affair. This morning I went out to do some errands, winding up at FNAC, where I discovered a combo package of a small Lexmark printer and a wireless mouse on sale (I've assumed that las rebajas would be winding up at the end of January -– wrong!! though I've been told that they're a phenomenon of the month of January, they now appear to be a phenomenon that's been considerably expanded). Both items I need, both items that have so far behaved impeccably, leaving me feeling obnoxiously, smugly happy with myself. Ah, this life of ours. It rolls right along, with no shortage of entertainment. rws 12:53 PM [+] |