Grand Tour, Day 38: Madrid Wednesday

Mari and I go shopping for gifts for the Texas Bentons, while the kids stay at home with los abuelos. On the Metro to Callao, an Ecuadorian combo plays an old favorite that Mercedes Sosa made famous--"Solo le pido a Dios." They earn a subsidy from Mari (translated lyric: "I only ask God/that the world not be indifferent;/It's a big monster and it stomps/on the poor innocence of the people").

We walk to la Puerta del Sol and then to La Plaza Mayor, to Lavapies, and finally to Embajadores, where Mari has a 2:30 lunch date with Gime. I walk home from there and have lunch with Jaime and Maria Rosa at 3:00--melon, gazpacho, and queso manchego.

At 5 pm, while Maria Rosa and Jaime nap, I take a bus to Atocha and explore the shops near la plaza de Neptuno. After confirmgin that this will be a good shopping spot, I take bus #34 back home, arrving at 6:15, and take a shower.

Maria Rosa's friend Emilia visits and brings a generous array of gifts for the kids--a notebook and charcoals, pastels, pencils, eraser and a manipulable wooden model for Emi; a portfolio for Pablo; and a bag and sunglasses for Nina.

Nina and I have plans for the evening that begin with a walk through my old neighborhood and the apartment at #8 on Carlos Arniches street where I lived from 1992 to 1993.

At 7:55, we get orange juice and a Coke Zero at the bar, which we take with us into the show space when the doors open at 8:05. Our seats are on the front row, which has three wooden folding chairs on each side of a single aisle.

The leader of the performing group is a tall, expressive, extremely skinny male singer with large hands (that's him on the left in the photo above--which I did not take). He is accompanied by a guitarist (Jorge) who has long curly black hair (not the guy above), and two dancers: Maria José (who wears a dress with geometric circles--I think that's her in a different dress in the photo above) and a diminutive Marta. They are talented. One of the things I love most about flamenco is how much the performers encourage each other, audibly cheering for one another and watching each other with intense focus.

Flamenco's home is in Andalucia, and its aesthetic is haunted by ancient connections to the Arabic culture that reigned in southern Spain from the 8th to the 15th centuries. But as some say is the case with American jazz music, its market has uprooted it from the culture that gave it life. Most flamenco performances in Madrid are produced for tourists. The performance Nina and I see is not independent of that market. But as far as flamenco for tourists go, it is a good one, enhanced by the small venue, the glitz-free off-the-beaten-path show space, and the fact that the performers we see are not performing together in the same space twice a day six days a week. With audiences this small, they are not in this for the money.

Sharing this outing with Nina is one of my favorite experiences of the summer.



The 8-minute video above was filmed in the winter/spring of 2017, and it was released just a few days before Nina and I saw the flamenco performance at Sala Juglar. I am confident that the dancer identified as "Susi" is the dancer I identified as "Maria Jose." I guess I got the name wrong.

The performance ends around 9:05.  Nina and I take the long way back via la Puerta del Sol, where we buy a - formaggio pizza slice for Nina. World Gay Pride day has taken over Sol. It is so packed with people that the police disallow further entry just after we make our way into the mess. The music is loud, crowds are thick, and we barely make it through.

We have dinner at home, and Rita and Uxue join us for a sleepover.