7/31/2019 Revolution Holiday for FLAUNT Magazine

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Exiting a hotel, travel duffel inhand, looking for a train, vacation-ing , youd never expect to see thewildness of men in suits screamingdown sidewalks, their neckties flap-ping behind them like the high-

flown vinyl flags affixed to banana-seat bikes.

The women too, lunchtimeand out in the sunlight, teeteringand full-tilt, some stopping onlyto hop in place in two spotsdualpauses in their flightremovingeach high-heeled shoe to end thehobbling and start the sprint.

The men armed with flailingbriefcases. The women beclawedwith designer pumps. Running awayfrom the train station.

Taxis honk. Helicopter bladeshack at the air. Then the explosions.This really sends the mad flight ofmidday workweek Barcelonans in alldirections, the danger of the loudbangs liberating the mad dash from

the sidewalks into the streets. Allbets off. It is life or death. A massrun without pattern.

Then why is the hotel doormansmiling?

They are just cleaning up thehippies for the football parade, hesays.

This revolution is inconve-nient.

Last night, we were gulpingolives. To call them olives is ob-scene.

We are at TICKETS in Barce-lona, along Avinguda Paral-lel. Theinterior is somehow both Kubrick-ian and Fellini-esque, the go-to filmdirectors for an easy out when youcant quite figure out what to say

about what youre looking at. Buthere the comparison is apt. Parttheater lobby, part carnival, cartsroll by in red and white stripes,waiters and servers are outfitted ingolden epaulets, hosts man thicklycorded weaved ropes attached tobrass poles. It is a very bright spot.Lit up like a film scene. We are ex-tras at the fte. We will eat no lessthan 15 plates of half-portions oftapas. Each exquisite for havingnothing in common with the last

(apart from its exquisiteness).Open for only a few months,

this is the place where chef AlbertAdri will aim all of his art afterthe closing of El Bulli in August,the globally celebrated epicurean

dream destination, famous for a lotof things, to Albert, maybe mostof all for placing him in the longshadow of his more famous brotherFerran.

Its not funny, says theyounger Adri. He has just bitteninto what has been described tous as a kind of mini tuna burger. Aslider, we conjecture silently. Judg-ing by Adris reaction, no one willever know as it will never appearon any menu of his. It is not funny

TRAVEL

186FLAUNTMAGAZINE

written and photographed by GreGG LaGambina

REVoLuTion HoLidAy: onE MAns Confusion in A TiME of PoLiTiCs

enough, he says again, pushing theplate away.

Soon! Not never. Please notnever, he says smiling at the ques-tion of whether this tasting, refin-ing, his tweaking of the offerings athis new venture will ever end, everfully meet his standards.

He scampers off into the back,

leaving us with Manel Vehi, a tem-porary translator for our brief inter-view, but actually a server who hasfollowed Albert from El Bulli, ele-vating the role of waiter to a kind ofart not often seen Stateside. Hereis a young man in love with food,happy to be near it, at its mercy,smiling as he sees you smile whenyou gulp that olive. (So tawdry, notquite correct, this word: gulp.)

But that is what you do. Itslides down a small silver spoonthat cradles this invention as a shell

might its oyster. Younever really chew, youdont bite, you moveit around and beforeyou can decide whatto do, it vanishes. Itsoliveness engulfing you

like a mist, the PeterPan green fairy tap-ping twice your fore-head and disappearingquick like a dragonfly.That was no fuckingolive. Gordal adobada.Thats what it says onthe menu. Much moremusical than olive.Gordal adobada. Yes,thats much better.

Manel returns.Again and again. Hischarm never wanes. Hisslow, careful descrip-tions of each plate arewords chosen with thedeliberate exactitudeof a tutor explicating apoem or a picture. Slic-es of tuna belly paintedwith Iberian cured hamfat. Quail eggs with mi-gas dalmogrote

. Here isan oyster, with an ac-tual pearl made of thesame air-infused magicthat made the gordalvanish like the ace in acard trick. You eat thepearl. Ravioli liquid defromatge gadita Payoyo .Does it matter what itmeans? The music ofthe words are barelyenough to do battlewith the taste. Navallesamb oli de gingebre, pe-bre de Caiena i aire de

llimona. Air of lemon. Hot pepperstransformed into gelatin. Asparagusarrives bathed in black truffle.

Gulping, chewing, sipping, sa-voring. In here, we forget all aboutthose angry kids. The mob in Placade Catalunya who smell of piss andshit, their tents verging on collapsenear their makeshift vegetable gar-dens, the PA speaker feeding back,angry pronouncements whose onlyintelligible words are variations oncorruption. Perhaps the betterfilmmaker to have recalled is Spainsown Luis Buuel. Our little pack,this not-so-discreet and currentlycharmed bourgeoisie, dabbing atour sated lips with a cloth embla-zoned with the logo TICKETS.

Here we have a drunken wob-bling man urinating into the shallowwaters before the monument dedi-

cated to Francesc Maci, one-timeCatalonian President. His bust af-fixed to the concrete angular mass

jutting high i nto the air a t one endof the Plaa de Catalunya. It is plas-tered with signs now, decrying allkinds of injustice, perceived or real.

Later, well find out this giant sit-inhas a name, the 15th of May Move-ment. Yes We Camp is one banner.There is anger at banks, Berlusconi,Obama, Sarkozy, the President ofthe Catalan Geralitat, Artur Mas,meat eaters, vivisectionists, pol-lutersall of them rolled into onemass to fling a kind of generalizeddispleasure toward. Near a shabbygarden planted near a tent are thewords This Land is Our Land.

Finished filling the fountainwith his yellowy discharge, the manleans back and flings his bottle ata carved, eternally placid crouch-ing nude in marble that hovers inthe still water. It smashes across herforehead. The few who notice sendup a cheer. A man is sprawled in themud near a port-o-john. This is arevolution that rents floodlights, PAspeakers, and a proper place to shit.Yet, never has discontent seemedso generalized. Maybe its just thebarrier of language. But I doubt it.Show me the intersection where abailed-out bank merges with theabuse of animals for medical re-search. (Besides here.)

In this park, a place made sofamous by Orwell in his Homage toCatalonia, a place where real bulletsflew (not these air guns well hearin the morning, designed to makenoise, create a scare, not a death)there was a real enemy: fascism.The end of all freedom, a thing tofight. Something Orwell took a bul-let in the neck for. Maybe if I couldask one of the more articulate stu-dents, theyd tell me the enemy isstill the same.

But we leave at the sight of thebottle smashing. The next morn-ing, Interior Minister Felip Puig willorder the removal of these youngprotesters. We find out later, not somuch to bring an end to the sit-in,but to clear the area for the likelyvictory parade for Barcathe be-loved Ftbol Club Barcelonatheheavy favorite in the followingevenings championship againstManchester United at WembleyStadium in London. Preparationsmust be made for the team tomarch through here on the week-end. There will be no more of thissprawling discontent, this eyesore.(The reaction to this show of forcewill follow us to Madrid, where their

own Puerta del Sol will bdisplay of equally kaleifrustration, a mixture of deidealism with others who hfound a reason to gatherfucked up.)

It is the next morning

fic, the explosions from awe wander in the directioeveryone is taking flight frlaughing doorman has gspecific plans on how to derneath the hippies, direto tunnels and a way to gtrain that will take us to Malaughter and seeming enjothe repeated utterance of grants my group the couragry out his instructions. Sooback on schedule, smoothdown the high-speed rails the center of Spain. Collapseats, television screens life, headphones are passeby the Renfe train staff. JacGullivers Travels begins. subtitles roll out, a youngSpaniards, begin to chucwatching, rapt. (Maybe thas fascism too?)

In Madrid, we desniff around the Puerta Chants of Barcelona, not alone! Tents, posteers. Police vans stand idlready, looking like hulkinwaiting for permission The same disenchantmeemployment breeds coThe names of the enemiethe same. Though, here, tion to the events in Bthe atmosphere is tilted of nonviolence. Faces arewith peace signs and posmonument to Charles IIIon horseback, peaks up oumess of banners, too higdeface, staring down frotory where these meek would be easily quelled.

We are tourists now. forgotten to be travelers. ference is in the movemenstop and stare. But, for a I forget myself. I point ma curiosity and snap-offThe curiosity is a humaand I get the greeting I A shaky but determinedthe middle finger. I am off. My shame wears offwe scramble to a restaurathat night, I will dream ofive. That glorious gordal That wonderful bite I tookrevolution I couldnt be bto understand.

Yo soy una fascista.