[continued from entry of 4/20]
Not only did every Metro ride come with musical accompaniment, the overwhelming percentage of the musicians were accordion players. Carting their instruments from coach to coach, finding a place to stand. Calling out a fast, mumbled intro, launching into a number.
There are days here in Madrid when Metro buskers abound, others when transit is more or less tune-free. Solo performers often board a train at one station, do a fragment of a song, make a fast pass through the coach for change, disappear at the next station. Many of the performers in Barcelona continued playing through three or four stations, playing numbers from beginning to end, sometimes doing a medley of three or four pieces.
I hopped a train Saturday morning, found myself in a comfortably crowded coach. At one end of the car stood an accordionist, playing quietly. A cadaverous individual -- face gaunt, expression strangely sombre, clothes neat though frayed. Tottering a few slow paces back and forth as his hands worked away at a soiled, tired-looking Hohner, wheezing out the single most funereal tune I've ever heard a street musician play. Producing an uncomfortable vibe -- dark, tinged with an uncomfortable something hard to identify. Anger maybe, or reproach. Feeling subtly aggressive, whatever it was. As the train pulled into the next station, he made a slow pass through the car, holding out a small container for change. No passengers ponied up, he disappeared quietly out the door. Before the train got underway again another musician appeared, his energy lighter, his expression relaxed, his music sunnier. Everyone in the coach seemed to breathe a sigh of relief, many handing over coins when he finished up.
Later that day, during yet another Metro ride, an accordion player stepped into the car, found a place to stand, called out a short intro, began playing Bach's Toccata and Fugue. Pretty decent rendition, though sounding a bit more antic than that piece generally does (coming as it did from an accordion). He turned out to be one of those players who commits to a full performance, producing a smooth medley of four different numbers -- two classical, two jazz standards. Appearing happy to be where he was, cranking out tunes with the flair of an accomplished musician.
Saturday evening, my final Metro ride of the day: yet another accordionist finished up yet another rendition of "Those Were The Days," slipped out of the coach. A man and woman replaced him, lugging a sound system strapped onto a handtruck. Him: nondescript, dressed neatly, taking care of the equipment, handing her a microphone. Her: tall, slim, Eastern European, wearing a red sweatsuit, face not exactly pretty but with bone structure to burn. He cranked up the sound system, the instrumental track for a Celine Dion number got underway. She started to sing, the lyrics translated into an eastern European language. A genuinely lovely voice. I couldn't get around being trapped in a subway train with a loud rendition of a Celine Dion song, though, and stepped briskly out onto the platform at my station, happy to be free.
A number of the Metro stations I changed trains in required a major hike to get from one line to another, commonly including treks along lengthy, featureless passageways. The public transport version of a sensory-deprivation tank. Management's solution: small speakers mounted into the walls pumping in muzak, orchestral renditions of pleasantly innocuous tunes. An approach I've never encountered anywhere else. Gave me the strange sensation I should be shopping.
Saturday evening, back out on the street -- post-Gaudí, post-Metro, post-cybercafés -- walking through the narrow, winding vias of the city's older quarters. Lovely architecture everywhere, both simple and extravagant, the passageways filling up with the Saturday night mix of locals and tourists. Searching for somewhere to get a meal, every restaurant I looked into packed, many with folks waiting outside for a table.
A sign at the doorway to a small local bar caught my attention, advertising bocadillos at decent prices. A couple of barstools sat vacant, I stepped inside, claimed one, ordered a bocadillo and a caña (a sandwich on a baguette, a small glass of beer). The rear half of the bar -- a long, narrow space with televisions mounted at either end -- seethed with a crowd of college-age males, some sporting soccer jerseys, some with faces painted, a few sporting glittery long-haired wigs. A glance at the nearer television showed a game just getting underway, and I remembered it was the night of the derby, the game between Madrid's two A-level fútbol teams, Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid. The fútbol rivalry between Real Madrid and Barcelona is the most intense in Spain, I hadn't really expected to find folks in Catalunya paying much attention to a match between two teams from Madrid. Silly me. Fútbol is fútbol (a message I should already have gotten, that phrase being the name of a popular TV show, a Sunday night wrap-up of the week's Spanish league matches -- Fútbol es Fútbol).
As the match's first half progressed, the joint gradually filled up. A 50-something couple presided behind the bar, the man an earnest, good-humored individual, the woman a grizzled survivor with a thick head of reddish-brown hair and the bosoms of a Valkyrie. A cheerful working class couple pulled up to my right, taking possession of the single available stool there. I shifted to the empty stool on my left so that they each had a perch, instantly making friends of the couple, who talked happily away with accents thick enough that I found it impossible to understand everything they said above the bar's swelling noise level.
A 14 or 15-year-old -- apparently with some connection to the male of the working class couple -- appeared at some point, hovering near us, watching the match, until the woman behind the counter spotted Mr. Underage and yelled at him to get the hell out of there, clearly meaning business, the scolding continuing without pause until the kid gave up and slouched outside into the pedestrian way. He disappeared for a while, then reappeared, edging back into the crowd to watch the match, until the woman in charge caught sight of him again, producing an even more intense stream of verbiage, hands making emphatic gestures, mouth opening wide enough as she yelled that I could see all the way back in there to the little fleshy punching bag hanging in the entranceway to her throat. The kid gave up, shoulders slumping, and fled out into the night. I paid up and did the same.
It's a lovely place, Barcelona, and I can't explain why it didn't make a stronger impact on me. Madrid and Sevilla, for instance, hit me upside the head with the 2 by 4 of love within a few hours after arrival. Barcelona -- an attractive, sophisticated, complex city, by rights exactly the kind of place that should have had me in transports -- provided many things to appreciate, but didn't seem to reach inside and grab me. Could be a visit of less than 48 hours just wasn't enough. Could be I was tired -- this jaunt being my fourth of the last two months -- and am ready to spend some time here in what feels like home without taking off anywhere else for a while. Could be I'm weary of doing trips like this solo.
I'm just not sure. I'll continue pondering, see what comes of it.
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Graffiti -- courtyard, Barcelona
Madrid, te quiero.
rws 6:51 AM [+]