You Can Drink the Tap Water in Spain

      . . . .  Madrid's tap water made all the difference for recovering from dehydration caused by jetlag, adjusting to the altitude, and thorough upset of usual metabolic routines.  I drank gallons and gallons.  Recall, high altitude also promotes dehydration, which dehydration in these circumstances makes jetlag, lack of sleep and metabolic interruptions so much worse.

Madrid's on a plateau surrounded by impressively jagged mountain chains.  It was spectacular as they appeared out of the clouds, snow-covered points and sides, as we were in that long descent to the airport. I recalled how moved and impressed I was waking to the view below of southwestern France, the vast forests, mountains, ravines and farmlands.  It was the same this time, except it wasn't Gaul, but Iberia, and it looked in terms color and soft shapes like all those paintings we know -- except this was real.  Then, suddenly these ominous mountains  . . . with steep ravines and foothills seemingly impassable except to those who know.  This is a Transhumance world.  There is even an upcoming festival in Madrid to celebrate the ancient Iberian Transhumance way of life.  El V recorded me, it turned out, face pushed against the window, eyes wide, repeating, "Wow," over and over.

It moved me, like that flight over southwestern France, this in my own eyes revaltion of what Spain is, it's history going back at least to the Phoenicians, the Romans and the Visigoths, particularly about Madrid, why it is here.  Recall, there is so little Islamic presence in the region as to only a single archeological artifact's survival of their barely there footprint, the antipodes of Southern Spain. Knocked me out, it did.

The observance of Women's International Day -- there is a lot to say about that, because we were right in it.

Can't believe we've been here just about 48 hours, as months of activity feel have happened.  However, jetlagged, needing to adjust to altitude, and the disruption of usual metabolic routine, while NO usual exercise, though a lot of walking is going on, up and down -- remember those mountains, hmmmm?  Plus eating so well, and o lordessa, in heaven, drinking wines made right here.

In the meantime too, when it comes to hotels, restaurants, art and entertainment, Madrid is so inexpensive, particularly compared to NYC.  Don't forget, that like the other European nations, i.e. the EU, Spain supports art and literature and entertainments.  We have nothing like this in the US.  In fact, in every way it feels like re-entering civilization from a long sojourn in a failed and toxic state, where we may all die any day from starvation, homelessness, disease, violence public and personal, climate catastrophe, and most of all plain all out stupidity.  In comparison to Madrid, even the avenues around the Met look grubby and shabby.

So much has happened already, including a whole day at the Prado, meetings with various people, drinking the best wine, and falling down unconscious -- not from the wine but from jetlag and altitude adjustment as well as arriving w/o sleep reasons.  Tomorrow is day trip to Toledo, which Spain took back from Islam in 1085, and which was the capital, as far as that would go, of Christian Spain, until Philip II decided to make this nothing place on this plateau his capital of his kingdom.

Gads, I love this!

I have some fotos, but am too tired to do the work to present them here now.

O lordessa it is wonderful to be here!

I could live here.  Easily. 

Ukraine Isn't Tuning Into New Orleans Right Now, But Russia Hangs In Cuba

     . . . . February ends. Another el sucko de dicko day – with the negative add of it being Monday.  However, here it is nearly the middle of the afternoon and the temperature is 27°, the highest it's been all day.  Russia supposedly in talks but beginning to reduce Ukranian residential areas to rubble, for all that world and his own nation’s opinion have almost moved Putin from a guy you can deal with, a guy you can live with, good for business, into the columns titled Monsters of History, providing moral and other sorts of support to Ukraine's resistance. 

Do any of soch media's newly minted Ukraine experts remember how not so long ago they hoorahrahrawed The Americans as the best thing that ever happened on television and how much they loved, admired, and sympathized with its two primary protagonists, who were planted Russian spies here in the USA to aid, assist and abet in any way they could devise, the downfall of the United States government?  Like a Russian yacht, from the gitgo it seemed more than likely that under the layers of production financing there was a deep connect to Russian money.  If that were suggested though, being in the realm of tinfoil hat delusion, well, one didn't, did one?  

Beyond that, it is still something nearly impossible to understand, why such middle-of- the-road, white, prosperous folks, particularly young males, enjoyed so much identification with these protagonists.  Well, one thing the 2016 campaign and elections and faux noose, and red caps and gerrymandering and hate campaigns against everyone who wasn't white, male and rich, outrage for public health and education and equality and justice and tolerance for all taught us -- why yes Russia has been meddling in everything, including the so-called US government head-up-Putin's ass giving Cuba back to Russia.

Which is taking a dreadful toll on Cubans and Cuba, by the way.  Which if  here was any fabric to spare and accessible on Cuba, we could well be seeing Ukraine flags there too.  But as the Cubans don't even have food, well -- and don't have a Fidel to tell the Russia "Go Fuck Yourself" now, and more porkalotetzy Russian oligarchs and their yachts are arriving every day as more ports close to them -- which means what little food available will be gobbled by the Russians.

We are in awe too, of the acts of courage being taken by Russians against this war, as well as having so much for that of the Ukrainians.  Doubtless one of the most common searches on internet images these days is this.

In the meantime, from From North Dakota's Fargo-Moorhead's InForum -- access to stories by subscription only.

"North Dakota tax dollars are financing Putin's regime in Russia

North Dakota's Legacy Fund is invested in bonds to the Russian government, and that needs to stop immediately."

 Dayem, now whose bright idea was it to do this, hmm? and now much did they get paid? 

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     . . . . Easy to forget but, hey today is Lundi Gras -- and tomorrow's Mardi Gras.  Eat some damned King Cake you all.

The great New Orleans radio station WWOZ that streams and broadcasts specifically New Orleans music, had about 100 Ukrainians tuning in daily.  As of this afternoon there are only 8 tuning in . . . .

Update:  O my, here it is evening, and those same 8 listeners are still able to tune it – for a half hour at a time, but somehow, they keep returning to hear New Orleans music!

Yes, we tune in streaming from here as well.

1453 -- The Holy War for Constantinople + The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History

     . . . . Constantinople has finally fallen. 

This month I've been listening to 1453: The Holy War for Constantinople and the Clash of Islam and the West (2005) by Roger Cowley. The book isn't finished yet, but the city that had survived every siege and attack for over a thousand years, with the shameful exception of those who one might have thought her allies, the Christians of the Crusades in 1204 has finally been taken. And that too happened due to an error, not an actual breaching of the walls by force. 

Which of these are Minas Tirith and which Constantinople?

More than ever I am convinced that Tolkien carefully read the first hand witness accounts, particularly the diary of the Venetian Nicolò Barbaro, of this battle that went on day and night for almost two months, and drew on those accounts heavily for the siege of Minas Tirith. 

However Gandalf's magic worked while the Christian magic that had so long kept the protective dome of God and the Virgin over the Great City failed. Rohan and the armies of the dead came to save the White City, whereas the living armies from the west never did, fighting as they were among themselves. Finally the massive numbers of the orcs overwhelmed the walls. The warriors within the walls that had never before been breached, though valiant beyond comprehension, were too few, too few. 

But in the end it was truly the conflicting Churches' theologies and commercial greed on the part of the West that took down the ancient Red Apple, The City of the World's Desire -- not Islam.


I'm beginning to wonder that Mehmet II's success in taking the ancient Christian capital of the east, when all others had failed (and he nearly did himself -- the continual turning tides of fortune for both sides makes so much of this story's drama and tension) had so much to do with his successor, Süleyman the Magnificent, obsession to take Vienna, within the heart of the not holy or imperial Roman empire. He must equal his forefathers' achievements, and taking Vienna would even outdo Mehmet's conquest of Constantine's city (which he tried and failed at in 1529). 

And from that victory which didn't happen, Süleyman expected to move on to take Rome. The Ottomans been trying to conquer Rome from the south in previous decades, thereby terrifying Queen Isabella, and solidifying Spain's belief that Islam was coming for them very soon. After all, the Ottoman emperor had announced to the world that it was. (So, as many moriscos as possible were expelled, to prevent them from becoming a third front in the Iberian peninsula.) In the meantime the Ottomans had occupied a significant extend of Italy's boot.

Cowley's book has made fine companion to the audio book that engaged me in January the outraged philosphical history of what did not happen (and could not then,, have happened), James O'Donnell's The Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History (2008) -- which outrages most readers, particularly his presentation of Justinian as the effective villain.

In-between the falls of Rome and Constantinople, I remain occupied with the Merovingians. El V got himself a book to read on the plane to Miami and back and in the Hampton Inn room, a history of the Middle Ages. It begins with Charlemagne, as these things all do; it has not a single Henri Pirenne cite, which I allowed boded well for the book's value.* It's fairly elementary, meaning that I pretty much know this outline quite well, but he knows nothing, but has gotten interested via my interest in the Merovingians and the Carolingians. 

He's promised though to get me some more up-to-date histories of the Merovingians because I'm frustrated by what we've got. None of the contributions to this history by archeology are included, thus we get nothing of the people: only the power elites. Nothing about the buildings, or agriculture. And hardly anything about trade and commerce.  Additionally, as a Belgian, Pirenne was more than willing to always rank the Carolingians as the most important development in the transition.\

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*    The Pirenne Thesis concerning the change from the Roman world to what some call Late Antiquity, others, the Dark Ages. was promulgated to its fullest in 1935, in his Mohammed and Charlemagne. That was nearly a century ago, based in scholarship older than that.  Research and scholarship has moved on significantly since then.  Full text of "The Pirenne Thesis Analysis and Criticism" here.

Reading Weds. - Sicily by John Julius Norwich

John Julius Norwich, now in his late 80's, is a distinguished popular British historian with a long bibliography.

The first book of his I ever read was A History of Venice: The Rise to Empire (1977), preparing myself for my first trip to Italy, at the conclusion of which I saw Venice for the first time.  That trip to Venice was mightily enhanced by having done so. It was very early in our marriage then, and el V was deeply, and happily impressed at what I could tell him about all sorts of the things we experienced and saw.  It was on that early journey in our marriage now of many, many journeys, wandering happy and excited through the deserted galleries of museums all through northern Italy (it was off-season, early winter and we got everything to ourselves) that we realized that we traveled very well together, each of us providing what the other didn't and together making it better than alone.

Norwich has written about Sicily before, but felt he hadn't made the best job of it, having left too much out and having learned more along the years as he returned on occasions to this Mediterranean island between Carthage and southern Italy. His interest in Sicily's history never flagged but only grew.  The result is Sicily: A Short History From the Greeks to Cosa Nostra (2015).  Surely, if one has never been to Sicily before and can read only one book to prepare, like Norwich's book about Venice, this is the one to read.

Sicily's history is a melange of cultures that are embedded in the Sicilian language. Sicilians, no more than Venetians, speak Italian, but have their own language, with a great deal of Greek, Arabic and Spanish influence, not to mention French from the short era when the Normans held much of Sicily. Additionally the Greek both ancient demotic Greek, as Sicily was their colony, and the Greek of the Byzantine empire.

Sicily's history has always been fractured by violence, conquest and resistance -- it isn't a happy history, but it is a fascinating one, filled with opportunities that kept getting lost or snatched away.

I enjoyed it all the more from having read so much about the era of Nelson and Napoleon in connection with Naples and Sicily.  He also manages to make sense for the reader of the inordinately complicated mess things became for Sicily with the competition between the Normans and the Holy Roman Emperor and their heirs, from which the island never really recovered. Moreover the interest for the reader does not flag as the eras roll on.  His accounts of Sicily in WWII is as interesting as anything during the age of the Roman emperors.

Playing Arthur Russell

El V leaves here tonight with a passel of fine musicians, to play Arthur Russell music, directed by Peter Gordon, over there in England and Scandinavia.

Here's the itinerary: 

August 10th, Visions Festival. 

Venue: Oval Space, 29-32 The Oval, London E2 9DT, UK. Doors 19:30.

Tickets

August 11th. 

Travel: Train from London Euston to Liverpool Lime St. 1121 - 1321.

Venue: Kazimier, 4-5 Wolstenholme Sq. Liverpool L1 4JJ, UK. Doors 19:00

Tickets

August 12th -- Day Off. Flight from Manchester To Oslo. 2005 - 2305.

August 13th, 

Venue: Oya Festivalen, Toyenparken, Oslo, Norway.

Tickets

August 14th. 

Travel: Flight from Oslo to Helsinki. 0910 - 1135.

Flow Festival, Parrukatu, 00540 Helsinki, Finland.

Tickets

Myself, I will remain here, recovering from the bone graft and molar extraction, hanging out with Austin amiga, who will arrive here on Tuesday, to play the Lone Star Reunion at B.B. King's, with her family band, Greezy Wheels. The person who did this violence to my person was so good my recovery is swift. I may even be able to have a beer or two again by next Thursday night when the music happens.  Beer goes with my stompin' cowboy boots, yanno. 

The weather here btw is wonderful.