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Saturday, May 07, 2005 Man, what a beautiful morning. Summer has settled securely in, the air is perfect, the sky deep blue, sunlight abundant. Me: stumbled my way out into the quiet streets shortly after ten, rounded up the a.m. paper, found a friendly cup of espresso, slowly worked my way through the two of them, a croissant providing accompaniment. Picked up some groceries. (At the produce stall, they were weighing some kind of huge, clublike, fearsome-looking root vegetables. Appearing less like food than primitive weapons. I mentioned that, the couple that run the stall fell about laughing, but didn't identify the, er, whatever those things were. Not that I quizzed the couple in any pointed way.) Passed back through the plaza with my stuff, saw a vacant bench on the shadow side of the space, planted myself there for a leisurely spell, continuing the swim back toward my limited version of full consciousness. Last night's neighborhood revels had carried on to just about sunrise, the occasional group of partyers (partiers? partyfolk? partydoers?) still passing through the streets around 6, 6:30, when the first rays of daylight finally drove them back to their coffins. If, on such mornings, the city cleaning crews don't make a pass through the barrio, there follows a period of blessed tranquility, two, three, sometimes even four hours' worth, after which the activity and sounds of the day slowly begin gathering. By the time I sat myself down in the plaza, the morning beer drinkers -- a group of scruffy-looking males whose numbers range anywhere from two to nine or ten, depending on the day and their individual schedules -- were well into loud, happy socializing. (Two of them singing a vaguely flamenco-styled thing, a third providing sloppy beatbox vocalizings.) I watched the scene. I breathed the morning air. I glanced through the paper. And as I stared foggily down at the newsprint, a hand thrust itself into my field of vision, proferring a newspaper of the political variety. In general, I am not interested in political rants or screeds, doesn't matter which part of the spectrum they come from. I'd rather enjoy my day.* If I open up an email -- the sender doesn't matter -- whose first sentence sets a tone of political spewing, and a glance at the rest confirms that the thrust is indeed political spewage, the email dies unread. I get to choose, and I care far less that someone might think me insensitive or ignorant than I care about the quality of my day. In this morning's instance, I might have accepted the paper, glanced at the front page to get its general tone, then likely would have slipped it directly into the first convenient recycling bin, but something about the extreme insistence with which it was presented promised more than a simple handing off of a newspaper. And indeed, it took several polite no-thank-you's to get the guy to withdraw the paper from under my nose, him attempting to break through my magic barrier of cordial refusal with a high-speed stream of political verbiage. I watched him pass off copies of the paper to other innocent folk passing through the plaza, who then found themselves receiving a political talking-to, shifting uneasily from foot to foot until they could escape and resume their lives. Not that this guy seemed like a bad sort in any way. Just deeply into imposing his political fervor on anyone he could. Ah, well. We all have our vices. *High-level political satire, on the other hand, suits me just fine. I tend to consider oases of smart silliness like The Daily Show and Las Noticias del Guiñol aids to day-enjoyment. [continued in next entry] ************ Fruit art! Madrid, te quiero. rws 6:19 AM [+]
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