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Monday, April 07, 2008 In recent days: James Taylor songs playing everywhere -- from the windows of a car passing on Gran Vía; blasting from the door to a tienda here in the barrio; drifting faintly out the open window of a flat, playing in the background on the radio in a morning caffeine joint as I worked my bleary way through an espresso and a croissant, paging through a morning newspaper. Machine Gun Kelly, You Got a Friend, Sweet Baby James. A sign, apparently, that his recent concert CD arrived here. Can't remember the last time I heard his voice before this sudden onslaught. Centuries ago. Recent highlights from the Spanish press: -- A classic Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, Hobbes ambushing Calvin upon his return home from school. (Final panel -- Hobbes: "He pensado que después de siete horas de aburrimiento en la escuela te gustaría disfrutar de un momento de absoluto terror." Calvin: "Déjame coger el bate para darte las gracias.") -- An article comparing Bush the father with Bush the son, lapsing into English to theorize that W. stands for 'weak.' -- A piece about the HBO show 'In Treatment,' the article's tone coming across as a mixture of intrigued wonderment and objective reportage ("Es puro voyeurismo televisivo...."). -- Ongoing reports about the Spanish real estate 'crisis,' prices now falling sharply after years of wild inflation, the term 'ciudad fantasma' (ghost town) being used -- exaggeratedly or not -- to describe massive construction projects of apartment buildings now standing near empty. Walking through the empty streets of the barrio of Salamanca on a weekend morning, the local world still in bed, en route to an exhibit of minimalist art. On a bench along a sidewalk, a blue baseball cap left by individuals unknown, bold characters enumerating the year '1975' across its front. At the exhibit, staff outnumbered me and two other early-rising art-goers (early in Madrid terms: 10:45 a.m.), drifting after us from room to room to ensure we committed no vandalism. Sports reports about recent bullfights in which bulls got the upper hand, featuring alarming photos of toreros suffering some serious damage. Further sports reports about the Spanish fútbol scene, the season in its final stage, the leading teams all limping toward the end, suddenly incapable of pulling a winning match out of their weekly encounters. Me perched on a stool at a café window, paging through a newspaper, P.J. Harvey playing on the in-house sound system, one of my favorite CD's, one I hadn't heard since... not sure. Millennia. Feeling like a small cosmic balancing out of the earlier James Taylor onslaught. Outside the café window, late a.m. tilted toward early p.m., sky a milky blue. Tourists with slightly desperate expressions (apparently unprepared for the slow coming to of local life on weekend mornings) and drowsy locals pass in clusters. -- runswithscissors: six-pack abs and rhythm to burn España, te quiero rws 8:08 AM [+]
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