Gatos: Madrid and Cadiz

 

View From Our Room in the Hotel Prado's Out of Open Window; Madrid's International Women's Day Protest Started Here. Their Chant, in English, Was, "Madrid Will Be the Tomb of Machismo!"  It sounds much better in Spanish, particularly accompanied by a batteria of Cuban Drums and Polyrhythms, Played by Brasileras, Which It Was.
Next to this plaza circle is a typical Spanish city, "Prado", a boulevard dividing the highway, with grass and trees, as one sees in Mexico City or Bogota -- or Havana's Old Town.  Crossing over that, one arrives at the brilliant Prado art museum.  Which is why our hotel was there and we were in that hotel.
Also, the windows of all the hotels in which we stayed, with a single exception, the last one in Córdoba, opened to the outdoors, and did not have screens, excellent for fotografy.

Remains of 9th C Arab Wall Fortress located at present Cuesta de la Vega, near the crypt of the La Almudena Cathedral; Long Before Madrid, And After Both Charles Martell and Charlemagne.

 Above the Courtyard Which Is Below the 9th C Muslim Wall Remains.

A Member of the Cat Families That Live In and Around the 9th C Muslim Wall Remains.

Madrileños Declare Themselves Cats!

Inside this Bar-Restaurant of the Most Hip Cats.

Theatrical Cat Hangin' Out In Madrid.

Evening On Cádiz Popular Atlantic Ocean Beach

One of the Cat Houses And Villages Built for the Ferals Who Live In and Along the Cádiz Sea Wall, On the Atlantic Side!

Go Any Further and We Shall Fall Off

      . . . .  We are at the end of the world, or at least the end of Europe, in the oldest, continuously inhabited city in Europe, Gadir, established by the Phoenicians, now, finally, Cádiz.  Now we know that we can go further, and we won't fall off.  Cuba, Havana, is just over there.  (Though it is Jerez, la frontera de Jerez, that actually looks a lot like Havana (without the dilapidation -- and when we get to Sevilla, now that recalls Havana in every way, which as the treasure flotas arrived from Havana to Sevilla, la reina católica's city, and which she made the capital of her kingdom, would be expected, right?). The tap water in Jerez was safe to drink, but it tasted funky in the way New Orleans tap water does.  Here in Cadiz, it's still safe to drink, which as it turns out is true throughout Spain. We are so used to being Cuba, where one cannot drink the tap water. Potable water was and always is a problem there, just as it is in St. Augustine, FL.

We are in a 4-star hotel that was a convent.  The church is still consecrated and operating as a church, but the sisters have gone ... where? elsewhere? It is extremely quiet, which is good for sleeping. One feels to be in a fortress (of God?) or a prison (of God?).  But it is still cold, dark and convent-y, though with mod cons.

It's a good thing to be reminded, as one falls in love with Spain, that even when/where it was Muslim, it has always been a prodigiously Catholic country, about which history there is a lot to be said, and not much of it good.  At least as far as the history I know goes, and speaking relatively to most people, at least in the USA, I know whole lot.  It cannot be divorced from the Church's history, and the history of Spain (and Portugal) anywhere.

So much experienced -- cannot do anything except jot notes in Moleskine and take fotos with foney-fone.  In mine mind's eyes, I see endless processions of beautiful horses, Flamenco dancers and, yes, matadors and bulls. Watch certain Flamenco expressions and there is so much there from the arena, or did it flow from the dancers to the arena -- even from dancers much, much before Jesus, perhaps, even likely, from before the Romans? The bulls were in Iberia before the Romans and the arenas.  Africa is just a quick passage across the Mediterranean . . .  there are bull rings and arenas there too, on the southern side. 

[Originally posted on DW on 03/012/23]

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Cádiz Cat Houses and the Atlantic

     . . . . Today was Phoenicians and Romans, mostly. 

After which I took fotos and video of cats, cat houses, and cat towns under the seawall that protects Cádiz from the tormentas of el atlántico as we sunset walked around the island where is situated the oldest, longest continually inhabited city in Europe. We did both Romans and Phoenicians today.... and cats.

Speaking of cats instead of horses, I have a nice foto of one of the cats that live in and around the remnant of the Umayyads' fortress wall on the site that became Madrid -- going back so far, but not yet as far as Charles Martel or Charlemagne -- time, time, time. It is impossible not to time travel in Cádiz.

    . . . Took fotos and video of cats. Cat houses, and cat towns under the seawall that protects Cádiz from the terrors of the Atlantic as we sunset walked around the island where is situated the oldest, longest continually inhabited city in Europe. So of course included are cat houses and communities.

The people of Cádiz care for the feral cats in the same way do those of Istanbul.  Places for them to shelter from the salty humdity and sea spray, to relax and hang out, and to eat.  These are cleverly constructed so the cats can get to the food but the always ravenous gulls and other birds cannot.  Wonder if rats can?  But I've yet to see a rat anywhere, but this is a city, moreover one so ancient as this, with constant grain shipments, surely there are rats.

We did both Romans and Phoenicians today.... and cats. Will have dinner at a Moroccan restaurant with a lovely woman from Finland we met on the train yesterday. Dancing Flamenco is her hobby and passion.  Otherwise she's festival organizer. One of her festivals is a Steampunk festival. 

Perhaps there is a way to transfer the short video I shot of one of the competitors and her horse in Jerez yesterday morning to here. I could do it via a long process of getting it to this wonky laptop's hard drive in Word video files.  But I don't have time for that before I get back to NYC, where I would do the work on my desktop, which is much more powerful and faster.  Trust me: this is equine poetry in motion.  Ever since I've gotten here, i.e. to Spain, my mind's eyes, are filled with horses and dancers as I try to sleep. I've never been in a country, not even England, not even Virginia or Kentucky, where horses are such an integral part of a national identity and history.  No wonder 4th grade Horse Girl me dreamed of coming here.

So little time to write, to transfer, etc.  It's all my notebook, and occasionally trying to put some of it up here via my fone.  Weird experience that.

But I am so afraid of missing, losing something, of these incredible experiences that just never stop, not for a second.

[Originally posted on DW on 03/13/23]

I Acted Weird But So Did They

      . . . . Two plump robin red breasts bopping along the Houston side sward of an NYU faculty housing complex.  I yelled at them, “What are you doing here?  A blizzard’s coming!" Along came a guy running nude except for earbuds, fone in armholder, shorts and sneakers.  Behind was a woman, and her dog, bundled up in matching parkas and boots.

The storm had already begun by 9 AM,  though mildly, with something between rain and snow falling. It’s going to snow here until about midnight tomorrow, Windydotcom says.  Good thing I went out yesterday for more milk and etc. If what They Say is the Great Blizzard of '22, highways and other transportation systems could be shut down for a while, i.e. also supply lines.

There is the additional relief too, that the super was able to fix the bedroom radiator yesterday (this necessitated shutting down the building's boiler while doing so), so we can now turn it off as well as on.  The next nights and days will be bitter, They Say. 

The latest news for NYC and Covid is the new "Stealth" variant has been detected here.  This one seems to be even more contagious than Omicron.  So one does wonder if by mid-February we'll be back to mid-December, thanks to Stealth, and to Typhoid Sarah Palin and So Many Others just like her.  You know, I am getting mighty tired of this.

Due to inflation and the Fed's attempts to deal, covid, weather, Ukraine, crypto, and o so much more, the markets are roaring bears, for the most part.

Thus the first month of 2022 concludes with things maybe even worse than they were before?  Despite the astounding economic growth? and that hardly anyone who has been vaccinated got sick enough to be hospitalized or die?  Despite the splendid new White House kitty, Willow, who has the a face so adorable, even people who don't like cats cannot help but be charmed?

White House Willow! 

The Le Guin Cat

     . . . .  Pard must notice the Absence.

                                        From ULG's blog on Bookview: Go here.

Still Feeling Xalapa: ¡Gatos!

     . . . . I introduced The Young of Xalapa to the concept of "herding cats."

El Azuzul Jaguar Statue. Museum of Anthropology, Museo de Antropologia, Xalapa.

Jaguar statue, Oaxaca.

Olmec Twins & Jaguar: the twins are divinities also. Here they are facing off to the Jaguar God, in the posture of respect, which, we note, is one of the postures common to cats of all kinds.

Due to loss of habitat, jaguars are endangered species throughout Mexico, Central America, South America and Brasil.  It is revered by the cultures in all these regions.

As all of my young friends are more than fond of cats, appropriately as they are descended from people for whom the Jaguar is a divinity, they immediately got it.

In Xalapa they term such a concept as "Xalapeñear."

Portrait of a Novelist

Because this is the internets all of which r belong 2 catz, from the NY Times Magazine feature piece on the novelist Dana Spiotta, this spot brings this delectation:

Novelist Dana Spiotta in her home, photographed by Erik Madigan Heck for the New York Times.

Life has been so crowded with music, weather, parties, Slave Coast events and preparations for them, and additional chaos, there's been little time for reading, watching, or thinking coherently. As far as thinking expressively of experiences experienced, all of what thinking that has been managed is deeply personal.

This is not easy, extracting the lessons that it is not about me and my feelings from the experiences of being questioned about race in this nation.

It is clear, however, that being in a position where one is questioned does demand continued, personal interrogration of historic givens, contemporary events and particularly, then, of self,

All these inquiries demand returning to the foundation construct of our nation, the fantasy of white supremacy, deliberately fabricated out of original warp and woof of our national triumphalist economic history, the artificial division between black and white, made to create a permanent slave society. Today it seems that this evil itself, with the consequences to the only members of our body politic whose ancestors were brought here by force, has been transmitted permanently into our national culture and politics.  How can that ever be changed?

When asked, "What do you, a white person, think about reparations?"  Does one respond, "Yes" -- meaning, that some sort of reparations are the only way to even begin redeeming our national sin -- and stop there?

Or does one ask how such reparations could begin.  Would this mean defining which U.S. citizens are or are not of African American descent? Who gets to decide?  Would there have to be registries as is done with the Native American tribes of today?  And what will that mean, how will that play out, having a national, racial registry in a nation so vehemently white supremacist?  Back in the 19th century there were even trials that went on for months, attempting to determine whether an individual was or was not African American. As invasive as at a slave sale, every physical attribute of the person in question was discussed and questioned, by the legal representatives of both sides: the side that agreed the person was white and the side that insisted s/he was black.

So many ways of looking at others' experiences, which are not one's own, as it isn't about me, who is not African American.  This in itself may be the crown of white privilege -- that I can say, "It isn't about me."

Which inevitably leads to the extraordinarily dreary white supremacist political theater we experience in sense around, as bad as anything that went on leading up to secession.  This in turn will lead to rants, and as one is ranting to the choir, pointless.

So it's been better these dismal winter weeks of Black History Month to have stayed away from the internet for a while, other than the most private  and small Elsewhere, conversing about home improvement, the weather, health, gardening, birds, and birthday parties.

Political Jobbing Cats!

Pussy cat, pussy cat, where have you been?
I've been to London to look at the Queen.
Pussy cat, pussy cat, what did you do there?
I frightened a little mouse, right under her chair.

Cats poised to descend on Parliament to help rid Westminster of vermin; see, here.

Larry is Westminster's Chief Mouser.  However, Larry Needs Help
as the Mouse Population Soars.

Larry Meets You Know Who