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Saturday, May 24, 2003 Got myself up and out at what many Spaniards might consider the bizarrely (even nightmarishly) reasonable Saturday morning hour of 10 a.m., when only a few hardy souls were about to get shopping/errands underway. And most of them seemed to be crammed into the cafeteria to the south side of the plaza (de Chueca), crowded up around the counter clamoring for cups of café. The two hard-working counterpeople looked like they were under siege. I can understand why. Some overcast moved in during the night, the warmth of recent days giving way to lovely cooler temperatures. Many folks sported sweaters or light jackets, though they didn’t feel necessary to me (being the thick-hided toughass that I am). A quiet few minutes with the morning espresso/newspaper gave way to some fast grocery shopping. Come mid-June, I’ll be heading back to the States for a while, and I find the approaching reality of that has me seeing the details of my life here in sharper focus. There are a few local merchants who have had to deal with me on a regular basis these last months, and it’s been interesting to watch their manner toward yours truly change over time, becoming more relaxed, their expressions a bit more open, laughing more easily, smiles softening and broadening. There is a couple that runs the produce shop I frequent and their back-and-forth can be seriously entertaining -- verbal shop shorthand, answering questions posed by the other mid-transaction, husband taking advantage of an opening to tease wife. Around the corner from them, at the stall where I buy chicken breasts and empanadas de atún (large rectangular empanadas of tuna, softer than the semi-circular empanadas often seen around Madrid, delicious when heated up just a bit), the owner has slowly been working his mid-20’s daughter into the stall’s routine. Up to this point, he had her making deliveries around the neighborhood, conveying everything in the kind of two-wheeled cart used by many middle-aged and older women here for their shopping. Today was the first time I’ve seen her working behind the counter on a more or less equal basis with her father -- pretty, observant, deceptively intelligent. From there I stopped in at the neighborhood bakery where I pick up my daily one or two baguettes. It’s a perilous place, this bakery. Simply stepping in the door can lead to impulse buys that sometimes get hovered down as soon as I get home. Went back to the piso, dropped off the purchases. (Did not hoover down the bakery-impulse-buy of the day, a victory for restraint.) Went back out to hit up an ATM machine, followed by a walk through the increasingly busy Sat. morning streets of the barrio. Which led me to the Telefónica building where I decided to check out a large exhibit of photography. This was around 11 a.m. Still early enough that there were no more than a handful of people in the exhibit hall. Quiet. Hushed even. Except for the faint sounds from a different exhibit, several video installations, off in another part of the hall. I passed through them on the way into the photography exhibit, saw that they were made by hanging cameras in different spots on the structures of some hair-raising amusement park rides. Which meant many of the videos consisted of a view of, say, the wildly looping track of a gravity-defying roller coaster, with maybe some blue sky visible behind it. Just that, punctuated every now and then by the sudden appearance of a ride vehicle crammed with screaming, terrified people, shooting in and out of the image, screams lingering after. That was the backdrop for the photography exihibit: the distant sound of people screaming. Made for a strangely unnerving cultural experience. Back out in the street, lots more people about. Walked out to Gran Vía where I could see that the bank of clouds ended suddenly a ways down the western stretch of the avenue, giving way abruptly to blue skies which made their slow, slow way across the city center. Strolled around enjoying the midday Sat. scene. On the way back here, passed a store on la Calle de Hortaleza, one that deals in a certain kind of products mostly related to films/TV shows of a certain kind (Simpsons, South Park, Lord of the Rings, The Nightmare Before Christmas, blahblahblah) (not that there’s anything wrong with any of that!). Was brought to a standstill by a large, eye-catchingly green Incredible Hulk cookie jar. If I were given to picking up kitschy knick-knacks like that, I would be forced to glom onto this bugger because it is just so admirably wacky: a big, broad monstrosity of a cookie jar, the Hulk’s body starting just above solar-plexus level and rising in aggressively over-muscled ceramic splendor to the scowling face/head which functions as the handle for the cookie jar cover, strangely shrunken in proportion to the rest of the figure so that it will fit into a normal human hand. As if the Hulk had run into the head-shrinking witch doctor from the end of Beetlejuice and come out of the encounter, judging by his expression, severely pissed-off. And speaking of the the Simpsons, I read recently that the daily 2-3 p.m. Simpsons broadcast on Antena 3 pulls in an average audience of three million. Three million viewers -- mid-afternoon, in a country of roughly 40 million. It’s dubbed into Spanish, of course. The voices of Marge and Lisa aren’t bad. Those for Homer and Bart, on the other hand.... (Note to Dan Castellaneta and Nancy Cartwright -- and for that matter to Harry Shearer and Hank Azaria -- please, please learn Spanish.) Seen in an episode broadcast two days ago -- a sign greeting visitors at the entrance of Itchy and Scratchy Land (theme park celebrating Itchy and Scratchy): RIDES NOT OPERATING TODAY: Headbasher Bloodbath Mangler Nurse’s Station rws 9:09 AM [+]
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