Category Archives: Spain

On the good old days

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Today, nostalgia is an industry–books, movies, theme parks, television–anything that will evoke a time gone by when we thought everything was golden, that everything was better. Of course, our memories play tricks on us. Those “good old days” where perhaps only good because we were all so young, and it seemed like we could do anything–climb mountains, swim oceans, slay dragons, solve differential equations, resolve the enigma of the Sphinx. We were thin and energetic, full of vim, vigor, and vitriol, and we could eat anything and not put on a pound.Yet we were also inexperienced, foolish, and innocent. I remember my trip to Mallorca almost thirty-four years ago as if it were yesterday, but when I look at that picture of that guy who I used to be, I haven’t the slightest clue as to who he really was. Those days were good because we were not yet cynical and sad, disillusioned or unhappy. We had plans, a future. Life, however, seldom cooperates and gets in the way of the best laid plans a person can make. How is it possible that all of that time has passed in the blinking of an eye? Life is life, and we live it a day at a time, working, studying, eating, cleaning, picking up, exploring, singing, planning, loving, traveling, arriving, and then we start all over again, and so on. Life will not be better when the week is over, or when we get our next promotion, or when we get married, or when we get a new job. Life is happening every day whether you care to notice or not. Philosopher, poets, artists, have been telling us this with every new thing they create, but we fall victim to our own distractions and worry about when our lives are really going to start, or we obsess about a past that never existed in the first place. Perhaps the best thing to do with the past is remember it, but not idealize it. The past is an unknown landscape that exists only as a construction of our imaginations and our desire to be happy once more. If you go there too often, you will eventually crash in the present, bitter and tired. I prefer to remember the good old days as just that, the good old days, and some of it was very, very good.

On the good old days

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Today, nostalgia is an industry–books, movies, theme parks, television–anything that will evoke a time gone by when we thought everything was golden, that everything was better. Of course, our memories play tricks on us. Those “good old days” where perhaps only good because we were all so young, and it seemed like we could do anything–climb mountains, swim oceans, slay dragons, solve differential equations, resolve the enigma of the Sphinx. We were thin and energetic, full of vim, vigor, and vitriol, and we could eat anything and not put on a pound.Yet we were also inexperienced, foolish, and innocent. I remember my trip to Mallorca almost thirty-four years ago as if it were yesterday, but when I look at that picture of that guy who I used to be, I haven’t the slightest clue as to who he really was. Those days were good because we were not yet cynical and sad, disillusioned or unhappy. We had plans, a future. Life, however, seldom cooperates and gets in the way of the best laid plans a person can make. How is it possible that all of that time has passed in the blinking of an eye? Life is life, and we live it a day at a time, working, studying, eating, cleaning, picking up, exploring, singing, planning, loving, traveling, arriving, and then we start all over again, and so on. Life will not be better when the week is over, or when we get our next promotion, or when we get married, or when we get a new job. Life is happening every day whether you care to notice or not. Philosopher, poets, artists, have been telling us this with every new thing they create, but we fall victim to our own distractions and worry about when our lives are really going to start, or we obsess about a past that never existed in the first place. Perhaps the best thing to do with the past is remember it, but not idealize it. The past is an unknown landscape that exists only as a construction of our imaginations and our desire to be happy once more. If you go there too often, you will eventually crash in the present, bitter and tired. I prefer to remember the good old days as just that, the good old days, and some of it was very, very good.

On cathedrals

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It’s not that I’m an expert in Gothic cathedrals, but I do know my way around all that stone and stained-glass. I don’t have a favorite, but I like Salamanca a great deal. León has the best stained glass. Segovia is such a late Gothic that it isn’t really Gothic at all. Burgos is total class, and Seville is monumental. There is little question that all of that carved stone heaped up in such a way as to create a sort of enormous stone cave is impressive. The vaults, the aisles, the alters, the choirs, the organs, the chapels all add up to an impressively chaotic and fractured version of reality. The cathedrals raise their stone arms up to heaven in a imposing array of arches, vaults, columns, and flying buttresses. This is supposed to be a big house, God’s house. The Gothic cathedral is built with an underlying theme–the pointed arch, which is used thematically throughout the entire building. What is difficult, at times, to stomach are the multiple layers of decoration which have been hung on the inside of the cathedral like so much ugly makeup. Cathedrals are really about lines of force, the harnassing of stresses, gravity, wind, and curves, and how all of those intersecting lines add up to a massive pile of stone. In the end, the cathedral is not the natural or logical outcome of the building process. Form and function are at odds with each other from the initial corner stone to the final key stone, and the laws of physics will be trying to pull down that stone roof even before it is put into place. The Gothic cathedral is a metaphor, then, for the struggle between man and stone to create an anti-natural structure based on the creative genius of man and his imagination to challenge those same laws of physics that are used to make those stone arches stay in place. Cathedrals are a living paradox of contrasting laws of nature where man has choosen to put his alters and proclaim his faith. I could do without most of the Baroque, Roccoco, or Neo-classic decoration and just roam the unadorned aisles as bovedas and arches sore above my head, knowing full-well that the columns and buttresses are all working overtime to keep the stones off of my head. Elaborate interior decorations do not speak to either my faith in God or my faith in man. Regular blocking, clean curved arches, and colorful rose windows tell me more about the art and skill of the tradesmen that built the place than the awful aesthetics of those who determined what would go into them at some later date, centuries after the builders had left. Today these stone monstrosities are a tribute to persistence and craftsmanship that is both forgotten and unappreciated. Unfortunately, many of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe are now located in regional backwaters that have long ago lost their importance as centers of power or eclessiastical greatness, and local parishes struggle to keep the lights on and the stone roofs from caving in. Cathedrals, at least to some extent, are anachronistic dinosaurs leftover from a time when building a big building was a big deal that not just anyone could do. Today, the Gothic cathedral is dwarfed by massive sports arenas, megalithic sky-scrapers, and gravity defying bridges that the medieval stone mason might have dreamed about, but never built.

On cathedrals

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It’s not that I’m an expert in Gothic cathedrals, but I do know my way around all that stone and stained-glass. I don’t have a favorite, but I like Salamanca a great deal. León has the best stained glass. Segovia is such a late Gothic that it isn’t really Gothic at all. Burgos is total class, and Seville is monumental. There is little question that all of that carved stone heaped up in such a way as to create a sort of enormous stone cave is impressive. The vaults, the aisles, the alters, the choirs, the organs, the chapels all add up to an impressively chaotic and fractured version of reality. The cathedrals raise their stone arms up to heaven in a imposing array of arches, vaults, columns, and flying buttresses. This is supposed to be a big house, God’s house. The Gothic cathedral is built with an underlying theme–the pointed arch, which is used thematically throughout the entire building. What is difficult, at times, to stomach are the multiple layers of decoration which have been hung on the inside of the cathedral like so much ugly makeup. Cathedrals are really about lines of force, the harnassing of stresses, gravity, wind, and curves, and how all of those intersecting lines add up to a massive pile of stone. In the end, the cathedral is not the natural or logical outcome of the building process. Form and function are at odds with each other from the initial corner stone to the final key stone, and the laws of physics will be trying to pull down that stone roof even before it is put into place. The Gothic cathedral is a metaphor, then, for the struggle between man and stone to create an anti-natural structure based on the creative genius of man and his imagination to challenge those same laws of physics that are used to make those stone arches stay in place. Cathedrals are a living paradox of contrasting laws of nature where man has choosen to put his alters and proclaim his faith. I could do without most of the Baroque, Roccoco, or Neo-classic decoration and just roam the unadorned aisles as bovedas and arches sore above my head, knowing full-well that the columns and buttresses are all working overtime to keep the stones off of my head. Elaborate interior decorations do not speak to either my faith in God or my faith in man. Regular blocking, clean curved arches, and colorful rose windows tell me more about the art and skill of the tradesmen that built the place than the awful aesthetics of those who determined what would go into them at some later date, centuries after the builders had left. Today these stone monstrosities are a tribute to persistence and craftsmanship that is both forgotten and unappreciated. Unfortunately, many of the Gothic cathedrals of Europe are now located in regional backwaters that have long ago lost their importance as centers of power or eclessiastical greatness, and local parishes struggle to keep the lights on and the stone roofs from caving in. Cathedrals, at least to some extent, are anachronistic dinosaurs leftover from a time when building a big building was a big deal that not just anyone could do. Today, the Gothic cathedral is dwarfed by massive sports arenas, megalithic sky-scrapers, and gravity defying bridges that the medieval stone mason might have dreamed about, but never built.

On falling asleep

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How is it, exactly, that we con ourselves into sleeping each night, into that vague simulacrum of death? Sure, sometimes we don’t even notice our eyelids drooping as we watch some mind-numbing sitcom or police drama on the tube, but for the most part falling asleep is an active, conscious effort that we make each night. For the insomniacs in the crowd this is a very sensitive subject because long after the vast majority of us have collapsed into slumber, they are still up patrolling the passage ways of the night–eyes open, hearts beating, lonely and confused about why the rest of the world can plunge itself into gentle oblivion so easily, jealous that they cannot do the same. In fact, the harder insomniacs try to sleep, the more they stay awake. I go to sleep when I am tired so that I don’t really have to ponder the process of falling asleep. My strategy is simple: try to forget the events of the day, get as comfortable as possible, and then, don’t worry about falling asleep. Sleep usually shows up presently when I have taken care to do the other things. Part of my sleep preparation is my routine before going to sleep: contacts come out, (I’m officially blinder than a bat), teeth get brushed, flossed, and rinsed, and under the covers. It never varies from one day to the next. But if I go to bed too early, I wake up at three a.m., and then what do you do? Get up and read a book? Watch reruns of Perry Mason? Patrol the halls with the other ghosts? I think the secret to falling asleep is getting your mind to stop running the day’s scenarios–the conversations, the conflicts, the whatevers that will keep you thinking and awake. I like to write a bit (like right now) before bedtime and let my mind stretch itself before turning the lights off–I make my brain just a little tired from creating something new, and it’s easier to get it to switch off when the lights go off. Some people read, but that is a little too passive and a little too easy. I’ve greeted the morning sun a few times while engrossed by one text or another, so that is not the best solution for me. Falling asleep is a bit of a paradox, though, because you have to actively do something, but that activity might be enough to keep you awake. At some point, just before you drop into the black unconsciousness of sleep, you have to convince yourself that your mind is blank, nothing else matters, that swirling down into the unknown maelstrom of sleep is okay. There is something about the darkness of night that swaths you gently in the sweet bonds of sleep, that helps your body send out the correct chemicals for shutting down the power plant and turning off the brain for awhile. I think I am lucky in that I can sleep almost anywhere, including the subway (not recommended), airplanes, the dentist office, church, and of course, if your house has a sofa, I can sleep on it with no prompting whatsoever. I can sleep sitting up. I have fallen asleep in lots of theaters. I have fallen asleep at times when this was not the most convenient or correct thing to do. Cars are a natural sedative for me, so if I have to drive, I always get well-rested before I travel. Cat-naps are heaven sent. I have no fear of falling asleep or of sleeping, and my only sleep problems arise in connection with jetlag, which really messes me up, and the older I get the worse the jetlag gets, which really sucks. I hate resorting to chemicals aids for sleeping, so when I go to Europe, I just know that for about a week, my sleep patterns will be off. Time to say good night and go to sleep. The Sandman is calling.

On falling asleep

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How is it, exactly, that we con ourselves into sleeping each night, into that vague simulacrum of death? Sure, sometimes we don’t even notice our eyelids drooping as we watch some mind-numbing sitcom or police drama on the tube, but for the most part falling asleep is an active, conscious effort that we make each night. For the insomniacs in the crowd this is a very sensitive subject because long after the vast majority of us have collapsed into slumber, they are still up patrolling the passage ways of the night–eyes open, hearts beating, lonely and confused about why the rest of the world can plunge itself into gentle oblivion so easily, jealous that they cannot do the same. In fact, the harder insomniacs try to sleep, the more they stay awake. I go to sleep when I am tired so that I don’t really have to ponder the process of falling asleep. My strategy is simple: try to forget the events of the day, get as comfortable as possible, and then, don’t worry about falling asleep. Sleep usually shows up presently when I have taken care to do the other things. Part of my sleep preparation is my routine before going to sleep: contacts come out, (I’m officially blinder than a bat), teeth get brushed, flossed, and rinsed, and under the covers. It never varies from one day to the next. But if I go to bed too early, I wake up at three a.m., and then what do you do? Get up and read a book? Watch reruns of Perry Mason? Patrol the halls with the other ghosts? I think the secret to falling asleep is getting your mind to stop running the day’s scenarios–the conversations, the conflicts, the whatevers that will keep you thinking and awake. I like to write a bit (like right now) before bedtime and let my mind stretch itself before turning the lights off–I make my brain just a little tired from creating something new, and it’s easier to get it to switch off when the lights go off. Some people read, but that is a little too passive and a little too easy. I’ve greeted the morning sun a few times while engrossed by one text or another, so that is not the best solution for me. Falling asleep is a bit of a paradox, though, because you have to actively do something, but that activity might be enough to keep you awake. At some point, just before you drop into the black unconsciousness of sleep, you have to convince yourself that your mind is blank, nothing else matters, that swirling down into the unknown maelstrom of sleep is okay. There is something about the darkness of night that swaths you gently in the sweet bonds of sleep, that helps your body send out the correct chemicals for shutting down the power plant and turning off the brain for awhile. I think I am lucky in that I can sleep almost anywhere, including the subway (not recommended), airplanes, the dentist office, church, and of course, if your house has a sofa, I can sleep on it with no prompting whatsoever. I can sleep sitting up. I have fallen asleep in lots of theaters. I have fallen asleep at times when this was not the most convenient or correct thing to do. Cars are a natural sedative for me, so if I have to drive, I always get well-rested before I travel. Cat-naps are heaven sent. I have no fear of falling asleep or of sleeping, and my only sleep problems arise in connection with jetlag, which really messes me up, and the older I get the worse the jetlag gets, which really sucks. I hate resorting to chemicals aids for sleeping, so when I go to Europe, I just know that for about a week, my sleep patterns will be off. Time to say good night and go to sleep. The Sandman is calling.

On some final thoughts on Peru

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My trip to Peru was well-organized, well-planned, well-thought out. Obviously, Peru is a country of contrasts, rich/poor, European/Quechua, English/Spanish, urban/rural, modern/ancient. I have encountered these contrasts before, but never to this extent. I have a new appreciation for all of the wonderful things and people that populate my life because I saw how limited life might be when you don’t have certain advantage, I saw a lot of people going off to work crammed into tiny buses, three-wheeled tricycles taxis, traveling on foot. Cars were a luxury. I gained a new found admiration for people who can live at or above 13,000 feet where the air is thin, the temperatures are cold, and making a living is very hard–little heat, no air conditioning, few creature comforts, Llamas are not the easiest animals to live with, and roads that I would take for granted are narrow, curvy, and rough, which is totally normal in rural Peru. I think that the hardest thing to navigate is that poverty, You can buy a piece of weaving, you can pay tips to visit a local home, you can employ a few of the locals for sharing their day with you, but the poverty these local indigenous peoples is real and you really can’t solve that. For some really simple reasons (and a couple which are rather complicated) these high mountain people are isolated from the horn of plenty which some people in urban Lima and other large cities enjoy. There are issues of literacy, of even speaking the language of power and influence–Spanish. The legacy left by colonial Spain is far reaching and powerful. The Spanish have been gone for more than a century and a half, but the political and social mess that they created still hangs on, and the shadow of Pizarro hangs long over a city like Cuzco. I also realize now that there is very little that the Peruvians might do to resolve many of their rural social problems. Since transportation is such a huge issue in a country that is as mountainous as Peru, many people never travel more than a few miles from the place where they were born. The rural indigenous Quechua are a small portion of the entire population, so the federal government cannot rationalize spending large amounts of money to connect those people to better systems of health and education. I also realized that American culture consumes enormous amounts of resources–water, food, housing, education, health, space, energy. We are a culture of hyper-consumerism. Nevertheless, I have a new appreciation for the industry and exuberance of my own country and its ability to generate wealth and power. Peru struggles with a political corruption that paralyzes its ability to solve social problems or to control the exploitation of its natural resources. In some ways, Peru is an emerging nation and economy. Mining, agriculture, fishing, tourism, and manufacturing are all growing parts of burgeoning economy in which many Peruvians might participate, but then again, many rural people find themselves isolated, marginalized, and left out. The paradoxes between the have’s and the have-not’s is breathtaking as ancient forces and beliefs collide with post-modern hyper-consumerism in a post-colonial meltdown of European values, languages, and conventions.

On some final thoughts on Peru

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My trip to Peru was well-organized, well-planned, well-thought out. Obviously, Peru is a country of contrasts, rich/poor, European/Quechua, English/Spanish, urban/rural, modern/ancient. I have encountered these contrasts before, but never to this extent. I have a new appreciation for all of the wonderful things and people that populate my life because I saw how limited life might be when you don’t have certain advantage, I saw a lot of people going off to work crammed into tiny buses, three-wheeled tricycles taxis, traveling on foot. Cars were a luxury. I gained a new found admiration for people who can live at or above 13,000 feet where the air is thin, the temperatures are cold, and making a living is very hard–little heat, no air conditioning, few creature comforts, Llamas are not the easiest animals to live with, and roads that I would take for granted are narrow, curvy, and rough, which is totally normal in rural Peru. I think that the hardest thing to navigate is that poverty, You can buy a piece of weaving, you can pay tips to visit a local home, you can employ a few of the locals for sharing their day with you, but the poverty these local indigenous peoples is real and you really can’t solve that. For some really simple reasons (and a couple which are rather complicated) these high mountain people are isolated from the horn of plenty which some people in urban Lima and other large cities enjoy. There are issues of literacy, of even speaking the language of power and influence–Spanish. The legacy left by colonial Spain is far reaching and powerful. The Spanish have been gone for more than a century and a half, but the political and social mess that they created still hangs on, and the shadow of Pizarro hangs long over a city like Cuzco. I also realize now that there is very little that the Peruvians might do to resolve many of their rural social problems. Since transportation is such a huge issue in a country that is as mountainous as Peru, many people never travel more than a few miles from the place where they were born. The rural indigenous Quechua are a small portion of the entire population, so the federal government cannot rationalize spending large amounts of money to connect those people to better systems of health and education. I also realized that American culture consumes enormous amounts of resources–water, food, housing, education, health, space, energy. We are a culture of hyper-consumerism. Nevertheless, I have a new appreciation for the industry and exuberance of my own country and its ability to generate wealth and power. Peru struggles with a political corruption that paralyzes its ability to solve social problems or to control the exploitation of its natural resources. In some ways, Peru is an emerging nation and economy. Mining, agriculture, fishing, tourism, and manufacturing are all growing parts of burgeoning economy in which many Peruvians might participate, but then again, many rural people find themselves isolated, marginalized, and left out. The paradoxes between the have’s and the have-not’s is breathtaking as ancient forces and beliefs collide with post-modern hyper-consumerism in a post-colonial meltdown of European values, languages, and conventions.

On Machu Picchu

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Even if you have seen it in pictures, you really don’t understand this strange stone village tucked in between staggering mountain peaks and profound valleys. This is a landscape that is truly three dimensional, and it has little or nothing to do with the two-dimensional landscapes we are familiar with on the central plains of the United States. Standing at the top of Machu Picchu and looking out over the entire settlement gives one the feeling of profound vertigo as the mesa drops off in front you, dropping off five or six hundred feet in two or three horizontal meters. The differences between the level areas where the buildings are located and the central grassy plazas are striking, and one spends the entire visit climbing stairs in one direction or other. Just getting to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes (the small town at the bottom of the mountain where tourists begin their climb to the top) is a challenge because the road is a series of thirteen switchbacks that take you up to Machu Picchu, so you’re already a little dizzy when you make it up to the central plateau. The pictures do not prepare you for the experience: the depth of the three-dimensional reality of Machu Picchu is not really reproducible in two-dimensional photography. Yes, you can get an idea of the scale of the roughly hewn mountains that jut straight up only to plunge down insanely into a the river gorge below. One should be holding on to something while trying to take it all in. After walking around a bit, you do start to understand the majesty of the place, its grandeur as an emperor’s luxury palace, its bold statement of power and ego. The construction of Machu Picchu is an over-the-top statement by an Incan emperor, Pachacuti, who was so powerful that he could build his palace in this out-of-way high plateau and get away with it. Machu Picchu served many functions, both secular and sacred for a star-gazing emperor of Tahuantinsuyu (the Inca name for the empire) who was at his height of power when he decided to build this odd home in the clouds. One notices almost immediately that many of the clouds surrounding the site are seen from above, not below. Except for the tourists, though, the place is strangely empty. None of buildings have roofs, which have long since fallen in and disintegrated, so in some aspects, we are now looking at the desiccated skeleton of a long-since dead corpse. Abandoned before the arrival of the Spanish, the Incas, whose empire would collapse not long after the arrival of the Spanish, never came back to Machu Picchu, and it fell into disuse forever. One might study the cosmology of this enigmatic town which sits silently at about 8,000 feet, or examine the construction secrets of Incan masons, or we could marvel at their ability to cut giant blocks of stone, move them, and then to lift them into place on a temple wall. Machu Picchu is, however, inscrutable and does not give up its secrets willingly or easily. The mysteries of why this was built, or the function of some of its stranger structures will forever be unknown. One could wander about Machu Picchu for years, going up and down its endless staircases, and never really understand it as a construction. Certainly, its main message is about wealth and power, how to get it, how to keep it, but there seems a little more to it as you ponder its almost endless terraces, it narrow passages, its symbolic geometric iconography. The entire structure seems to be the unification of earth and sky via this intermediary point between two huge mountain peaks, a ridge daring both the mountains and the valleys. My point would probably be this: don’t let anyone tell how interesting Machu Picchu might be, go and experience it for yourself. Tip of the hat to Millennium Tours of Texas for breaking down all of the barriers and making this trip so easy and so possible.

On Machu Picchu

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Even if you have seen it in pictures, you really don’t understand this strange stone village tucked in between staggering mountain peaks and profound valleys. This is a landscape that is truly three dimensional, and it has little or nothing to do with the two-dimensional landscapes we are familiar with on the central plains of the United States. Standing at the top of Machu Picchu and looking out over the entire settlement gives one the feeling of profound vertigo as the mesa drops off in front you, dropping off five or six hundred feet in two or three horizontal meters. The differences between the level areas where the buildings are located and the central grassy plazas are striking, and one spends the entire visit climbing stairs in one direction or other. Just getting to Machu Picchu from Aguas Calientes (the small town at the bottom of the mountain where tourists begin their climb to the top) is a challenge because the road is a series of thirteen switchbacks that take you up to Machu Picchu, so you’re already a little dizzy when you make it up to the central plateau. The pictures do not prepare you for the experience: the depth of the three-dimensional reality of Machu Picchu is not really reproducible in two-dimensional photography. Yes, you can get an idea of the scale of the roughly hewn mountains that jut straight up only to plunge down insanely into a the river gorge below. One should be holding on to something while trying to take it all in. After walking around a bit, you do start to understand the majesty of the place, its grandeur as an emperor’s luxury palace, its bold statement of power and ego. The construction of Machu Picchu is an over-the-top statement by an Incan emperor, Pachacuti, who was so powerful that he could build his palace in this out-of-way high plateau and get away with it. Machu Picchu served many functions, both secular and sacred for a star-gazing emperor of Tahuantinsuyu (the Inca name for the empire) who was at his height of power when he decided to build this odd home in the clouds. One notices almost immediately that many of the clouds surrounding the site are seen from above, not below. Except for the tourists, though, the place is strangely empty. None of buildings have roofs, which have long since fallen in and disintegrated, so in some aspects, we are now looking at the desiccated skeleton of a long-since dead corpse. Abandoned before the arrival of the Spanish, the Incas, whose empire would collapse not long after the arrival of the Spanish, never came back to Machu Picchu, and it fell into disuse forever. One might study the cosmology of this enigmatic town which sits silently at about 8,000 feet, or examine the construction secrets of Incan masons, or we could marvel at their ability to cut giant blocks of stone, move them, and then to lift them into place on a temple wall. Machu Picchu is, however, inscrutable and does not give up its secrets willingly or easily. The mysteries of why this was built, or the function of some of its stranger structures will forever be unknown. One could wander about Machu Picchu for years, going up and down its endless staircases, and never really understand it as a construction. Certainly, its main message is about wealth and power, how to get it, how to keep it, but there seems a little more to it as you ponder its almost endless terraces, it narrow passages, its symbolic geometric iconography. The entire structure seems to be the unification of earth and sky via this intermediary point between two huge mountain peaks, a ridge daring both the mountains and the valleys. My point would probably be this: don’t let anyone tell how interesting Machu Picchu might be, go and experience it for yourself. Tip of the hat to Millennium Tours of Texas for breaking down all of the barriers and making this trip so easy and so possible.