Red

I never miss the chance to tell the story of when I worked on a cooperative California/Baja California project and was stopped by a Tijuana cop for, get this, driving too fast over a speed bump. Tijuana cops inspired nothing less than trepidation in me, and my fears were flamed, undoubtedly, by the tough portrayal of (baby, baby) Benicio del Toro in Traffic. This particular time I was wearing a form-fitting red skirt-suit that emphasized my, shall we say, assets. I’d safely stashed my bag and all pertinent papers in the trunk. The cop was determined to ask for them one by one, which probably had something to do with the fact that that entailed me getting in and out of the driver’s seat at least three times, each time giving him a nice view of leg. Well, the situation degenerated into him asking me not once, not twice, but three times (one for each view of leg?) if I wanted to “ir a conocer Tijuana“. This after my patiently explaining I really had to be on my way as I was meeting with a high-level Tijuana official. Well, after work then, he proposed. By the end, through clenched teeth, I finally managed to convey that no, I did not want to go (with someone who was probably little better than a drug trafficker himself and had undoubtedly kicked in his fair number of teeth, ribs, balls — well, my imagination has never been known to know limits). I got out of there intact, no traffic fine, no instructions to “follow him to the station”, fortunately, but I have to tell you I never again wore that particular suit south of the border.

So a month ago, knowing I had to do something but quick or I’d never get the damn residency card I need to leave Spain (or, more accurately, to return to Spain — more on this saga here) in time for my trip to Berlin, I took myself in hand. I chose a sleeveless clingy red top and set off to Avenida de los Poblados sin número, armed with the name of the boss and the knowledge of the best time to go, which had come from my previous three painfully fruitless visits to the same place. I walked up to the guard with my best gringa manner that combines respectful good-breeding with the full expectation that I will be treated as a VIP, and asked him to point out the jefe, which he did immediately. As luck (finally!) would have it, said jefe was just finishing up a conversation with someone who clearly was not as interesting as the gringa dressed in red. He turned immediately to me, and didn’t even allow me to finish my explanation as to why it was of critical importance to Europe that he expedite my paperwork for me to be able to travel. Cutting me off mid-explanation, he directed me to one of his staff who immediately attended me. Amazingly, instead of the full fingerprinting which all previous officials had led me to believe awaited me, they only took my right index finger (same as for a California driver’s license). I have some idea it might have to do with being an American but this will likely remain shrouded in dark bureaucratic fog, as are so many things for me here. Raise your hands to the level of your hips, palms facing up, fingers spread open, lift ayour shoulders as far as they can go and put on your best quizzical look — here you have it, the world-famous bureaucratic shrug, which I first learned in Nicaragua and which is an even more necessary survival tool in Spain.

There’s a turning point in an immigrant’s life in a new country, when one starts to get that feeling of, “oh, I get it”. This was my turning point and I marched out of there feeling like from now on, things will be better for me here. As an obvious first step as a successful new Spanish resident, from now on every article of clothing I purchase will, clearly, be red. Two days ago I went for my fifth visit to Poblados sin número and there was my shiny new resident’s card waiting for me.

Viviendo Valencia

If you’ll stipulate to the fact that the perfect film, like the perfect man or the perfect city, does not exist, I’d have to say Valencia didn’t do at all badly in the latter category. After all these years of never making it there even though I always suspected I’d like it more than Barcelona (of which I have just never been much of a fan), it let me down in terms of weather for R.’s visit; as our trip approached, the forecast degraded steadily from sunny lower 80s (27/28°C) to rainy lower 70s (22/23°C). And rain it did, in spades, right at the time I’d wanted to be at the beach in the mid- to late afternoon, for all but the last day (cool and overcast).

Despite that, I found myself wondering if this is a city in which I’d want to live, if/when I finally start to slow down a bit. It has many of the elements though the art museums, sadly, couldn’t hold a candle to Madrid. But there is a lively alternative film community and two cinemas that show original versions as well as a Filmoteca. Also, Valencia has a real café culture, for example, the over-decorated, over-stuffed, red-velvet, softly-lit sensibility of Café de la Horas with its boutique teas and a cocktail list designed for the international connoisseur. This contrasts starkly with the cafeteria/bar culture of Madrid – overly cheerful, too-bright watering holes where the circles under one’s eyes from the long night before seem outlined in flashing neon. For Madrid, a city in which I’ve now lived for a total of over a year, I’m hard-pressed to name cafés that I really like; I may have to dedicate a future post to the peculiar lack of good cafés in Madrid.

Back to Valencia, then: its real forte is the amazing food. For paella valenciana, we checked out El Palacio de la Bellota, on Valencia’s paella row as written up by Lonely Planet. Although it’s always necessary to wait a good ½ to ¾ of an hour for a good paella in any Valencian restaurante, at dinner time (close to 11 PM), the Bellota took a good hour or more to produce an admittedly lovely paella valenciana. So go prepared to nurse your drink, or several, or order raciones (not my preference because the last thing I want is to take the edge off my hunger when launching into a paella).

A local recommended La Riúa — one can’t get more Valencian than this, as one of the reviewers on this page said, it’s valencianísimo. In a moment of brilliance, we ordered arroz negro (prepared in an extremely shallow paellera with Valencian rice, squid, and an intensely rich sauce of squid ink). Three weeks later, I’m craving more; I’ll have to launch a search for the best arroz negro in Madrid. Desaparecido checked in with his recommendation just in time, and I quite agreed: El Rall for the paella marinera. Finally, a very pleasant surprise was La Lola, which offers fusion cuisine that could easily pass in the Bay Area. It’s pricey but accompanied by a flamenco performance every night that nicely highlights the experience. It looks unlikely that I will have time to get back to Valencia until next year, but in the meantime, I’ll be salivating every time I think of it…

I Have a Dream

Spitting mad is the only way to describe my current mood. M.J. has just called, wanting to be the first person to tell me the news: Obama has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. What?? How is this possible? What kind of dunces sit on that committee anyway? Is this some sort of sick joke?

It’s been hard going since well before the election to convince dreamy-eyed European leftists that very little will change post-Obama. We all have to dream, I guess. But I’m sorry to say, my friends, that the man is no Martin Luther King. OK, sure, let’s grant that it’s not that easy to wind down such a misbegotten quagmire as the Iraq war; that’ll take time. And socialized health care for the U.S., well, the Clintons tried and failed nearly 20 years ago; it’s not easy.

But look, here’s how it works: the few hundred pathetic souls imprisoned under barbarous conditions without trial in Guantanamo for years now could have been freed this January 21st. Hundreds are still there — see this shameful story of the Obama administration’s foot-dragging on the youngest detainee, a juvenile when imprisoned. Now consider another extremely straightforward matter: the Kyoto treaty. With a majority of Democrats in the Senate, that should have been signed in, well, let’s say 10 days. So by the end of January, it was pretty damn clear to me: Obama’s more of the same old, same old.

I felt a chill up and down my spine when he was elected, sure I did. But that was more because of what it says about the American people than about him. So here’s my dream: Obama will do the right thing. He will decline the peace prize. And that way he will be able to get back to the serious work of studying the various situations with which he finds himself confronted and for which he has, frankly, little more than the vaguest of visions.

Orgasm

We all find out sooner or later that perfect simply doesn’t exist. But those of us who tend to pay attention realize that this difficult world comes close, at times, even if just for a moment. And so, the search for perfection becomes a ceaseless quest and potentially a dangerous addiction in itself. Being in Madrid I can slip over to the Prado any time I like and feed my soul on the likes of El Greco, Goya and Bosch. Film’s a bit more tricky as I’m at the mercy of the Spanish alt-film chains (Renoir), but the Golem’s become my favorite theater for current releases and nearly every cheap night (Monday) will find me sampling their newest. The other night I saw Anti-Christ for the second time there, and I’m going to say that the Prologue (the first four or five minutes) may be some of the best work I’ve ever seen in film. The rest of it (though one must, as with Breaking the Waves, filter out Lars von Trier’s hokey mystical imagery) tapped into something deep within me. I’ll warn you, though, that it’s not for the faint at heart; as with his best work, it’s rigorously intellectually challenging and psychologically draining.

What I saw in Anti-Christ, then, is that desire for perfect communion, the inexorable need to meld, that is so strong in us as modern humans. I ask myself, how could something so recent in our evolutionary history have become so strong, this desire for the perfect other, the mirror image of ourselves, this trope of the perfect couple, made for each other, meant to spend their whole lives together? It’s the hubris of thinking life would be inclined to stop time for us, as if that perfect moment could be made to last a lifetime.

To use another trope, then, of life as a canvas, well, that’s what makes it so apparent to me how very tricky this whole thing is, because there’s only one canvas and we only get to paint linearly, and there’s no retouching allowed, no going back ever, and really so little time to get it all down, much less get the colors right, and life has shown me that though some of us may be made for each other, even if it’s true, it’s only for, at most, the length of, let’s say, an orgasm. It may be exactly that orgasm that tricks us into thinking that the perfect “other” exists, but then the moment fades and is gone, and the only one for whom we are truly ever made and with whom all of us will always and forever be, is our one and only selves.

La Noche en Bici

Madrid being, of course, de marcha every night of the year, with Fridays/Saturdays/holidays reaching a near-frenzy that I am beginning to find unpleasantly forced, there is nothing compelling about ten times the usual number of people on the streets. But with La Noche en Blanco there’s a significant difference: nearly all of downtown is closed to traffic. This, my friends, was worth experiencing, and this year R. and I did it the smart way: by bike. It undoubtedly won’t be long before most European capitals close their historic downtown areas to traffic completely, and what a boon that will be to cyclists. La Noche en Blanco by bike meant we probably saw three or four times as many things in the same time and could easily circle back to the things worth re-visiting throughout the night.

This year was not as inspired as last — no fields full of shining lights and no repeat of the tightrope walker who was very sadly weathered out last year. The Matadero ended up being a good place to hang out, with a Christo-reminiscent work by Marlon de Azambuja plus a Flying Grass Carpet as a crash pad in front of the concert stage. Here’s a pic of yours truly dancing in tangerine.

TONIGHT: Madrid’s Fourth Noche en Blanco

I’m currently in Valencia for the first time as I never made it here in the 15 or more years since I starting coming to Spain. It’s a pity as I think I’ve found close to the perfect town. It may be the place for me when I finally get ready to slow down a bit… More on that later, but I’ll be making it back to Madrid in time for La Noche en Blanco, starting at 9 PM tonight (Sept. 19th). Much of downtown Madrid will be pedestrianized, which in itself is something not to be missed. But take it from me (see last year), a bike is the best way to do it. Grab a program and make sure you map out a strategy in advance. If you do it right, you can keep going till 7 AM the next morning.

The Last Fix

It’s elemental, atomic, electrons plunging into the core, endorphins exploding, protoplasm pouring from every cell, tidal waves washing through every pore. It’s more powerful than the nuclear force and the deepest delirium tremors, it’s an unpalliable ache, beyond the reach of the best of upbringings, the cold light of day, or the Holy Roman Church and a phalanx of cardinals.

It doesn’t matter the color of your skin, the language you speak, your most deeply held beliefs, the cold hard facts, the plain truth or that everyone can see quite clearly that you’re not at all right for each other. You’d break up marriages, eschew any and all suitable boys, auction your newborn child, chop off limbs one by one, you’d go to the end of the world and back, wait a lifetime for it if you had to, spend your last dollar, just to sink into it, one more time, the last time. Really. The last.

[Thanks are due to Lars von Trier for inspiration.
See Anti-Christ. In Europe. Uncut.]

Who’s This Guy Sorolla?

I’d never heard of Sorolla before I noticed, earlier this summer, the Prado’s extremely well-advertised exhibit. He looked to me like an uninteresting version of the French impressionists, and I had no intention of paying 10 euros to get in, when the rest of the Prado is free from 6 – 8 PM every afternoon. Luckily I was offered a pair of complimentary tickets by the sponsor, Bancaja Foundation, and M.’s enthusiasm provided the necessary impetus. The ground floor of the exhibit definitely feels like French impressionism, but there is something more to Sorolla — his fascination with shades of white and how sunlight affects it. However, it’s the second floor of the exhibit, fourteen vast murals on loan from The Hispanic Society of America (which I never knew existed), that’s really special. More than just art, they are an ethnographic treasure, depicting different regions of Spain with an explosion of color that shouts Spain, SPAIN, SPAIN! Those back in the U.S. — make plans to see them when they return to their home in the Bronx early next year. Those here in Madrid, you have two more weeks before the exhibit closes on September 5th.

Sex Sells, or How to Increase your Blog Hits

Although this blog is really about nothing more than a gringa/guiri culture addict moving all by her little self to Madrid and experiencing the good along with the bad, people on the Internet are not looking for cultural musings or poetic commentaries on solitude. No, they’re looking for sex, of course. What’s my proof? Well, WordPress, the host of Sunny Sexy South, provides all sorts of nifty statistics regarding hits, links clicked and searches leading to my blog. Exhibit A: yesterday’s searches that led to SSS hits:

Search (Views)
sergio ramos (2)
eurocup sexy (1)
sexy eurocup 2008 (1)
spanish culo (1)
sunny sexy (1)
cono female, 40, al (1)
sexy america ferr (1)

To help out my fellow bloggers, I’ve developed a list of tips to increase your blog hits:
1) use the word sexy as much as possible
2) use profanity (in my case, the locals provide more than enough material)
3) if female, refer to your gender as much as possible
4) mention major sporting events in your city and throw in the name of the current hottie over which all the women are salivating

In order to shamelessly increase my hits, then (August is a slow month on the Internet in Europe), I’m going to emphasize that the most sexy Spanish city (Madrid, of course) is home to Sergio Ramos, who has the nicest culo I’ve ever seen in soccer shorts especially when he’s doing his special Eurocup high jumping kick, which makes women want to reach out and grab virtually any part of his body we can get our hands on, but of course that’s just our female hormones on overdrive, ¡que coño es ser mujer!

Sneaking Out

I spent last week in Galicia, theoretically escaping the heat, only to come back and discover it averaged a mild 90 here while I was gone. We’re now in the fifth day of, respectively, a 95, 97, 99, 97, 97-degree heat wave that looks like it will continue through another weekend. Thanks, Madrid. Other than that the trip worked out great as M.J. was headed to A Guarda and offered a ride and a place to crash the first night. I didn’t hang around longer than to take the ferry over to Portugal, walk to the beach and see its most northwestern point, thereby thumbing my nose at what I’ve taken to calling the La Migra Española (who’ve forbidden me to leave the country for 6 months). That’s me on August 7th, at the 3.5-month-point, in another country, with the south-western-most point of Spain at my back. Take that, Migra.

I continued up the coast to Pontevedra with its beautiful river and charming old town, hitting the very first day of the village fiestas. I people-watched a good long time at the Church of the Virgin of the Pilgrims as I was under the impression she would be trotted out around town, but there was only a parade, firecrackers, and numerous doves released in front of the church (signifying what, I have no idea). The next day I met R. at Santiago de Compostela and we trained it up to her flat in A Coruña, where the fun really began, involving copious quantities of octopus, with the best pulpo I’ve ever put in my mouth at Pulpeira de Arzúa. As advised by Desaparecido, who made a short appearance (strictly via SMS), I got my hands on berberechos, a special type of clam indigenous to Galicia. He’d invited me to sample them once in Madrid and they were unforgettable, so I got a couple of R.’s local friends to advise me. The thing to do is to prepare them at home, so I went, found myself a whole sack-full for the ridiculously cheap price of 3 euros, soaked them in salt water as instructed, steamed them alive, and R. and I had a feast. They are a type of clam that is so flavorful that there’s no need to add anything at all. Imagine the ocean as a food and you have berberechos.

A Coruña, although not a physically beautiful city, is on a beautiful stretch of coast with a climate that reminded me so much of San Francisco. Here’s a long-distance shot of the Torre de Hércules, which I preferred not to visit as it’s been completely rebuilt over the 2nd-century Roman ruins. The grass really was that color; the quality of light there was every bit as luminous as in the Bay Area.