Visit to Dublin

This past weekend my fiancé and I took advantage of a cheap flight special by RyanAir and flew to Dublin for the weekend to celebrate my birthday. Though waking up to get to the Barcelona airport was a bit unpleasant, being able to arrive and start the day with a typical Irish breakfast next to a coal fire was worth such discomfiture.

We checked into our hotel then walked around the areas around the Lifee river, around which Dublin is developed. After about an hour of ambulation later, we then walked to the Old Jameson Distillery. I obtained tickets in advance through the website so was able to escape having to wait in line or hope that a tour would happen before close. The tour started with a video providing a brief history of whiskey, the founder of the Jameson distillery and the manner in which the company was growing today. It had the feel of an informercial, but was well-enough produced and had enough information of interest to keep even the disinterested entertained. From here we walked inside and saw a series of tableau vivants. It started showing the storage and processing of wheat, then continued on to different steps in distilling with a special emphasis on showcasing the equipment used to make the alcohol. The next section had barrels with corked lids in order to show the “angel’s share” over time. In total the tour was not very long, perhaps half of an hour, but being able to see the videos and experience even a simulacrum of the production involved is well worth the price of admission. The ticket price also includes a free drink, which is how we finished the tour.

When I’ve drank whiskey in the past, I’ve typically done so straight or with a dash of water. However here I was given the option to try it with cranberry juice and was presently surprised how refreshing it tasted. Josselyn had the whiskey with ginger ale, which was also so pleasant that she expressed her first liking for the liquor. Because we had been randomly chosen at the beginning of the tour, at the end we were then separated from the rest of the group in order to develop our “whiskey tasting skills”. Two non-Jameson brands were pre-poured next to the Jameson and we sipped them while the tour guide gave active commentary on our experiences. At the end she asked each person what their favorite is.

The purpose of this is to have all those chosen for the tasting say in front of everyone that they prefer the Jameson to the others, relying upon social pressure if not on actual personal preference. While I was a little put off by this, both as my favorite liquor is peaty single malt Scotch’s like Laiphroaigs, I do usually buy the Jameson more as it’s more widely drank by guests.

A Perfect Presentation Of Jameson

After finishing this whiskey flight, the tour ended but Josselyn and I continued on our tastings into the beautifully decorated bar in the foyer. There we had another flight of whiskey, which consisted of their 12 year, 18 year, Special Reserve, Jameson Gold and Middelton labels. The whiskies were delicious, being their premium labels, but it was the bartender’s effort into the Irish Coffee that was especially commendable. The coffee was sweet, as Josselyn likes it but I don’t, yet cut with just enough of the whiskey so as not to make it seem overwhelming. It was a perfect way to end our tour before having to go back into the cold and we left feeling very warmed by our experience – though this may stem from the fact that we’d just had several shots of liquor on mostly empty stomachs.

It was these empty stomachs that prompted us to stop at an all-you-can-eat Asian restaurant. It was after eating here that I discovered one of the problems that I soon found to be endemic to Dublin that a former New Yorker found to be an especially perplexing problem – lack of acceptance of credit cards and ATM’s that were blocks apart. As anyone who has lived in Manhattan or the areas close to it in Brooklyn know, ATM’s are omnipresent and cards are accepted everywhere. In Barcelona that has been the case as well, so their lack here also surprised me. The situation was such that after we ate, having no cash to pay, I had to go find a second ATM that was two blocks away from the one that had been suggested to me by the wait staff as upon getting there I discovered it was out of order.

It was too late for us to go to the Guinness Storehouse and as we would have had to run in order to catch up with the Literary Pub Crawl we decided to instead top at a few places on the way back ourselves. With the food, the lateness and the tiredness, however, this desire actually only translated itself into one stop which was followed by the rest of the weary traveler.

A romantic moment with my princess

We awoke early to eat a simple but pleasant breakfast at the hotel then embarked on a three and a half hour tour of the city via Sandemans. We learned a great deal about the tragic and humorous history and culture of Ireland’s capital – specifically in relationship to the Irish’s many attempts to obtain home rule from the British. Our guide, Gavin, had extensive knowledge of this and told it with gusto, detached humor despite suffering. It is not just this style of speech but the tour itself that gave me memories of a similar guided jaunt in the Golan Heights. There too the guide showed us around the areas once occupied by others, giving the history of a regional conflict with obvious attempts to sway sympathy to one side. I don’t mean to evoke any sort of deep comparisons between these two places, but merely state that being in this tour I came to realize that one of the cultural fronts between two such peoples consists precisely in such seemingly innocuous tours. The mobilization of sympathy through such narrative structure that one physically relates to at that precise moment it very powerful. Whether it is someone telling you that the spot you are now standing on was once a shooting ground for British snipers and mortar rockets, or that one a clear day you can see Damascus which one directed a full scale invasion through the are on which you stand, makes for compelling narrative. Combining this with memorial art immediately after seeing this definitely has an effect of emphasizing this. In the Sandeman’s tour, the lack of accounts to counter those given stemmed in the first place as a systemic result of the political system while the latter was due to the lack of British visitors – however I doubt this would have blunted much of the edge of the comments. The result would have likely been merely barbed banter and apologetics for something outside of one’s control. Regardless of the political issues at hand, the architecture, as the picture here shows – was very romantic.

That said, as we ended the tour Josselyn and I were joined by Phil, from Prospect Park, and went to a restaurant in order to eat some Guinness Irish stew. It was served cafeteria style in a large bar that the group attended after we went, and while it was good considering the hunger we’d worked up in our walkings through the cold, I couldn’t help but thinking that even though it was less “authentic,” I’d made it better before. After eating we split a cab to the Guinness Brewery as we were all tired from the walk. While not someone who drinks regularly, I am a fan of stout beer in general and Guinness in particular.

The Storehouse which tourists can visit is an actual working brewery in the same way that those who visit Brooklyn Brewery’s tours on the weekend see the people working, but it is so much better for not being so. The seven story edifice is filled with everything Guinness related – the actual ingredients that go into the drink, machinery that is used in order to brew it, the history of the now obsolete but once very important cask makers, as well as advertising. The production value of the place is indeed impressive and reminded me of the science museums that I used to love to visit as a kid. Josselyn and I spent probably two hours going through the entirety of the Storehouse, and at the final part of our educational edification we able to top off such knowledge with a full glass of Guinness draft.

My Goodness, My Guinness!

The view was breathtaking and sipped our beers as respite from all of the activity of the day so far.

After this we had enough time to change clothes, drop off the small presents picked up from the Guinness gift shop and managed to catch up with the pub-crawl. We went to several bars and clubs, the names of which all escape me except for “The Kitchen”, which is owned by Bono of U2 fame. It wasn’t anything spectacular – but it was enjoyable nonetheless.

The next day we woke up around mid-afternoon, very comfortable and protected from the slightly chilly room by the enormous blankets provided by the hotel.

We walked around the city in order to see some of the other sights, including the Book of Kells, which is as impressive in person as it is when looking at a picture of it’s contents, some more parts of Trinity college, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Amusingly enough, Josselyn turned down my suggestion that we look inside the church as she wanted to view more parts of the city. We were told later by Dani, a Brazilian friend Josselyn made the previous night, that if we would have gone in the church at that time they would have been starting mass shortly, which I would have wanted to stay for, and that if we would have done that we would have met Bono. While I personally don’t care, seeing Josselyn’s face as she related this fact to me the next day did bring me some laughter.

We stopped for coffee and inside I saw a newspaper article that I found telling of the general state of world economic affairs. A local rag related the proclamation of the Irish Arts and Crafts council that stated that if at the time of the upcoming Christmas each person was to spend only 5 Euros on domestically produced craft than the nation as a whole would save 13 million Euros. The news story made me think of Jonathan Swift’s famous satirical manifesto as well as a comment made by the Dublin guide the previous day. The first because he upbraided the wealthy landowners of his time for, among other things, importing foreign goods at great expense rather than purchasing and helping develop markets closer by and the latter as he explained that during the period when the loans were rushing into the country there was no lack of spending on foreign produced goods. The figure of speech which the guide had used had been quite telling – what happens when you give a bunch of money to a people that had never been instructed on how to spend money before – they spend all sorts of stupid things like new clothes and TV’s and what not – which do nothing to accumulate additional capital. This is a theme that ‘ll develop further in another blog, however, I’ll simply point out the huge difference in the possibilities in Irish and American newspapers as the latter would never publish such a news story, funded as it is by the advertising of multinational corporate interests.

We stopped to eat at a lovely little Cornish pastry bakery run by an Argentine woman about to return home for the holidays. As Josselyn and I have been considering moving there at some point, and as the two of them have some sort of connection as Latin Americans in that region, we stayed there for a while and learned about the economic conditions there right now. I’m still open to considering it, but there are admittedly many other places that I would prefer to move to next.

After making a brief stop to watch a flash mob, we walked through the main commercial thoroughfare, looking at some of the street artisans works and stopping to watch to one of the juggling buskers, then went to the hotel for a brief rest. After which, Josselyn took me out for my birthday dinner at One Pico. One Pico serves modern Irish cuisine with a price that is a steal compared to similar quality restaurants in other countries. The almost casual ambiance lacking signs of opulence consists of low lighting, minimalist decoration in the form of early twentieth century glass and gold wall lamps with decorated mirror balls hanging underneath. These mirrored balls are not tawdry seemed to indicate that the culinary traditions of various places receiving large Irish migrations will influence this location.

My fiancé took me here for my birthday and upon entering the unseasonably cold night we were promptly asked for our coats and quickly seated. The waiter was a little pushy in obtaining our orders immediately, but this could be false as I may have just gotten more accustomed to Spanish cameraras languid attitude more than I had thought. While we waited for our orders to appear we were offered a selection of breads – whole grain, raisin and walnut, tomato, and plain.

I started off with the foie gras appetizer. It had included square cuts of fresh pear dusted with breadcrumbs, a thick slice of fluffy white brioche toasted so as to give it a texture that perfectly complimented the spread and a pear –vanilla puree. I had this paired with a German Riesling whose fruity notes accented this wonderfully. My fiancé had the Beef Carpaccio, which she enjoyed greatly.

For the second course I had shallots and pork while my wife had steak. There are few things that are more simple or delicious that an excellent cut of steak. When combined with a fried onion, pureed sweet onion sauce, a grilled leek and a small dash of spicy sauce on the side it makes it perfect. I had to plead extensively to obtain a second bite from my wife of this delicious combination – and it was my birthday dinner! Along with our dinner we had a delicious sauvignon blanc, chosen as my wife is averse to red wines. I was at first somewhat reluctant as to how this would pair with the pork and steak respectively, however the sommelier was spot in his assessment of the pairing. While not as full bodied as I am used to preferring, I found that the lightness of it countered well with fat of the pork and brought out the slight fruit notes in the semi-spicy sauce holding the shallots to the plate. My wife said that she greatly enjoyed it as well.

Delicious Pork and Scallops at One Pico

We finished our meals by both ordering strawberry cheese cake and, as the lime sorbet was out that day, raspberry sorbet paired with a Moscatel wine from Malaga. The cake came out slightly chilled and topped with a fresh, room temperature compote made of raspberries and blackberries. The tart of the berries juxtaposed with the sweetness of the cheesecake was not the only exceptional aspect of the desert – but both the cheesecake and the sorbet itself were exceptional. In the United States it is typical for cheesecakes to be quite hard to the downward thrust of the fork, from the cheesecake itself to the hard crust at the bottom. The desert we had at One Pico, however was soft on the top and bottom. The crust seemed to he held together simply by the wish to be delicious and the cake itself was light as a down pillow and had none of the overwhelming denseness that so many other restaurant mistake for the sign of a well executed cheesecake.

With this combination of excellent service, delicious food unto itself and it being an exceptional value we will definitely return when next we are in Dublin. The next morning we woke early, yet again, and took the bus back to the airport and a short flight later we were back home.

Bilbao and San Sebastian

I’d wanted to go to Pais Vasco since arriving in Spain and a RyanAir flight special finally convinced me to visit Bilbao and San Sebastian over a three-day weekend. I departed at 6:30 am and as the flight is only a little more than an hour landed at eight am. A quick bus ride and a short walk later I was at my hotel in the middle of La Ribera, the old town district along the waterfront which had been continuously occupied since the thirteenth century and is now known for it’s haute cuisine and pinxhos culture. Tired from going to sleep late out of joyful anticipation of exploring a new place and waking up early I took a short nap without bothering to set an alarm as getting up late is just on par with Iberian culture and I knew I wouldn’t miss out on anything happening before noon.

When I did awaken, I first decided to go to the Bilbao Guggenheim. After double-checking their hours of operation on their website and learning that from my hotel to the museum it was about a twenty minute walk along the brackish river Nervión I began my journey there. It was cold out but I was warmed by sun and the cities attractive mix of modernist and traditional architecture. Trekking there it appeared that the rest of Bilbao had also been waiting until a late in the day to become active. As I walked I reflected on the city, and my general nomadic experiences for quite a while. Soon, however, I arrived at the wavy titanium exterior of the museum.

In a word, the museum was disappointing. Were I to given the chance to visit again or not, chances are I’d allot my time for other activities – be it taking a long shower, spending more time drinking my café con leche while reading La Vanguardia or something equally mundane. This dislike of the collection was partially my fault for not having done more research into the permanent collection and in trusting in the aura of “Guggenheim” to be something worthwhile. The overwhelming majority of the museum were large, elemental installation pieces that I found to be marginally interesting but overwhelmingly pretentious in the scope of the work. When it comes to art I am admittedly a realist and romantic in taste and find most modern sculptures, plastic arts and paintings to be dreadfully lacking in redeeming qualities. There are times when I wonder if I am a philistine for having such negative views towards such art, but these disappear after I interrogate the reasons why I think this is so. The largest installation piece, taking up an entire room was naught but large pieces of wrought iron made so that you “lose yourself” by going into some of the pieces and see changes in shading in perspective in another

A string of Christmas tree lights of the type made in the seventies hanging from the ceiling as a means of referring to the 1980s AIDS epidemic. Sculptures without function or figuration whose features are supposed to allude to ur-artifacts and thus symbolize the totality of sculpture. One of the paintings that I did take a special pleasure in seeing, though not for it’s aesthetic qualities, was my first Julian Schnabel painting. When she was alive, my grandmother had told me when growing up Schnabel and my father were good friends. She told me how after he had returned from his first trip to Europe he had offered her several paintings in return for borrowed money that consisted of broken plates plastered onto a giant canvas. She’d said thanks but no thanks and suggested that he find a new occupation. Of course these paintings would later be a major parts of his career in the New York art scene and these particular works were his way of distinguishing himself from other artists working in the abstract expressionist medium. Looking at his works there I felt connected with her not just from the story but from my assessment of the work. I found myself more interested in wanting to read the book The Recognitions described in the Guggenheim audio commentary as being influential to Schnabel as well as other artists of the time, than the work itself. One section held numerous screen prints of Lenin in various colors, while another was of strange, non-functional shapes formed from wood, clay and metal.

While I recognize that some degree of commentary will always be needed for art – it seemed to me that most of the descriptions there were posted in order to make bad, facile art have a depth to which it isn’t able to convey on its own. Put another way, most high, complex art is to me just stupid. For instance, throughout my times in many a museum I have seen several paintings whose coloration is solely black or solely white. One may give all sorts of explanations as to the importance of *that* particular color choice and how it responds to a movement in art at their time or something else. But this applies equally for a blank canvas and seeing such pieces makes me feel as if someone is trying to get something over on me. Visual artists still have an aura to their works which has yet to be eradicated in the way that others artists have. Rarely if ever, for example, do you hear of a renowned author whose work only a few people understand.

I’ve probably devoted the same amount of time to the art at the Guggenheim Bilbao as walking there and back. After leaving there I walked down Alameda Recalde to Colon de Larreategui to look at the many old municipal buildings, statues of eminent personages past, small squares hidden within buildings and other beautiful works of living architectural art. This and Bilbao’s Old Town, to me are much more attractive and aesthetically edifying than anything held within the walls of the museum. Indeed I felt that the greatest aspects of the museum were outside it – the giant spider on the north side and the dog composed of plant lift in the front.

As I walked around the old town I saw several plaques indicating former residences that made my inner historian smile. The Latin American liberator Simon de Bolivar lived for a while in one of the apartments here and Miguel de Unamuno was born on one of the streets. While it’s hard for me to imagine such people there now, so far away from Spain’s golden era, but seeing such placards always brings me joy.

At night these streets lost their commercial luster as they became filled with small and large groups of twenty-to-fifty-somethings. In the areas closest to the river, thus closest to the newer and more expensive developments, were the older crowds hopping from one pinxhos bar to another in order to have a wide variety of snacks and drinks. The further one gets from the river on the east side the age of the crowd drops, the diversity increases and there is less emphasis on fine dining paired with regional wines and more emphasis on greasy foods and cheap drinking.

Placa Zumarraga marks the dividing line between the affluent and the less fortunate. As one leaves Casco Viejo and goes into Solokoetxe the crowd changes to metal heads, punks, rockers and their dogs and the odors from clean, river-scented air to the pungent smell of marijuana, old sweat, spilled beer and frying fats. This zone appeared to be the only space where the African community living further south appears to interact with the Basque youth at night, a place where those made marginal by chosen identity and forced history mingle. As I was more interested in culinary tourism than Bilbao’s wanton youth culture, I quickly ambled through the latter to spend our time in the former sampling pinxhos of different restaurants. There may have not been as many interesting radical and rock flyers – but the atmosphere was more convivial.

The next day I woke up early and took a bus to San Sebastian. I’d decided to go there on the advice given to me by one of my neighbors in my Barcelona apartment complex that had gone there the week before. The bus ride was cheap and the time to get there quick. I tried to start a conversation with a young Frenchman who was reading a copy of Naomi Klein’s book No Logo, but as my comprehension of French consists of a handful of words and his grasp of English was tentative at best I simply gestured with my hands that I found the book interesting, had seen the author speak before at the Brooklyn Book Festival and that it made me happy to see someone reading it.

From the bus departure point I ambled along the large pedestrian walkway past second hand clothes markets and small cafes along equally small squares towards the Cantabrian Sea. On my way to the waterfront I passed beautiful old buildings made with hewn stone. Some of that had, since being mortared together, turned into a climbing ground for vining plants and made the building look like a pretty admixture of 1st and 2nd nature.

When I finally arrived to the main beach pavilion, I was immediately taken aback by the natural beauty contrasted with the color scheme imposed upon the buildins surrounding it. Simply put, San Sebastian is a beautiful example of the type of small coastal towns along the north of Spain and south of France that has exceptional charm. I couldn’t resist walking down to the small sand beach to lay in the sun for a while to enjoy the heat, breeze and view.

After perhaps half an hour, I walked back up the stairs to the two-hundred foot wide boardwalk park interspersed with small statues, children’s play areas and a number of trees denuded of leaves now that winter was just beginning to make it’s presence felt. There were many young families pushing their children in fancy strollers and others holding their adolescents by the hand. I went to investigate a merry go round that looked like it was from the 50’s. The paint on the horses, swans and sleds may have been slightly cracked, but it still had an air of grandeur to it. I walked along the densely packed buildings adjacent to the wharf that hugged the high ridge with a thirty foots tall statue of Jesus looking down upon the town similar in appearance to the famous one in Rio de Janeiro. I walked past a large number of pastry shops exuding the intoxicating smell of sugar and butter, small clothes boutiques and vendors of baubles and tourist kitsch that I’ve not seen offered in other parts of Spain. I later entered a large stone government building that have been converted into mixed-use commercial space and just so happened to have one of my favorite restaurants in it, Gambrinus. While I felt somewhat guilty for eating Czech food in Pais Vasco, I have such rich and happy memories from eating such food when I’d lived in Prague that I couldn’t help myself form ordering some gulash and pivo. More health conscientious now, this time I substituted the requisite French fries for salad.
After that filling and relatively healthy meal, I decided that before sunset I’d walk to the top of the cliff overlooking the city. I returned to the area I just was on the street adjacent that which had taken me there and found myself distracted – both for want of coffee and sight of another beautiful beach.

In my quest for coffee I found discovered another beach to the east of the one I’d just been at with less people and more dogs. Here there was also a concrete wave break that I could walk down here and so feel the spray of the sea as the swells crashed against the rocks and see the crests became beautiful spumes. On one of the rocks I noticed ETA graffiti, the first evidence I’d seen of the Basque Nationalist group since arriving.

I walked along the beach for a little bit and even found a dog with an amiable owner that let me play fetch with him. I was somewhat shocked by this, as all the dogs I’d encountered in Spain were usually trained to ignore everyone but the masters. I went over and touched the water, so as to be able to say I did, walked along there for a while then decided to continue on my quest to see up close the statue, fort and lookout points.

On the tops of the steps of this church were visible two other churches. One was perhaps five hundred meters to the east of it and the other, larger one perhaps a thousand to the south. There was a spray painted anarchy sign on the carved wood door and metal handle of the church, which unnerved me. I’ve seen this sign spray painted on buildings throughout Spain and even understand the anarchist’s critique of the Catholic church here. That said I found the degradation of such old and skilled craftsmanship not as a sign showing of power but it’s very opposite. The church here has made this and many other buildings that bring people together while the anarchists, well, if they had something to show it certainly was not shown on any of the literature I’ve seen on the place. I continued strolling, past a movie theatre, a modern place of worship and arrived at stairs with a placard that indicated it was the beginning of the trail to the top. A group of teenagers were jovially hacemos un botellon at the top of this first steps.

The walk up the rocks was a mixture of stairs and pathways with oaks on either side. Though the temperature was in the teens (Celsius), I heated up fast from the physical exertion and after five minutes peeled off my jacket to make the trek more pleasant. I stopped at several vantage points that had both the city and the sea as it’s focal attraction. At one of these points, which had once been part of a fort protecting San Sebastian there was a large number of Spaniards from the town who seemed as if they came there as part of a weekly ritual. I briefly chatted with them then continued up another 500 feet to the main fort. On the way down I went down the second path that the guide in the tourist office had informed me of. On this route were I passed by several groups of youths picnicking in the grass, playing Frisbee and when we finally exited the park it was right by the large staircase immediately beside the docks.

Night was starting to fall and as there was little time left until the last of the buses returned to Bilbao I quickly make my way back to the bus station. The Gothic style church I’d passed earlier was now lit up with lights of various changing shades of red, blue and purple. The outdoor-seating areas of restaurants were slowly filling up and the young families were replaced with couples window-shopping. I waited perhaps fifteen minutes for the bus and sat towards the back. Being that this was the second to last bus of the night, this time the bus was completely full. A group of borrachas that were unable to sit together populated the seats around me and spoke loudly and crudely throughout the entire hour and a half trip back. By their faces I could tell those not with them were somewhat annoyed, but at the same time only partially so as they would sometimes crack a smile. As for me, I learned two new uses for the verb joder. Tired from our long adventures, after I got back I skipped extended pinxho hopping again and instead stopped in only two different places that I’d not visited the night before.

The next day was my last so I went to the Museo de Bellas Artes, which was both fantastic. One of the temporary exhibitions was of Anselmo Guinea, a Basque modernist painter whose works were exceptional and the other was of La Maleta Mexicana, which I’d seen and wrote about while this collection was in Barcelona. The permanent collection also had a number of fine works, and of course a section of gothic religious art that seems to be mandated in all Spanish museums. I spent perhaps three hours looking through and admiring many of the paintings. There was a small section with sculptures reminiscent of those I’d seen in the Guggenheim, but after mocking them I simply walked past them.

After leaving I wanted to do and see more, however the streets of Bilbao, just like the streets of Barcelona and I would presume every other area of Spain, were nearly empty and the doors to most of the restaurants, shops and cultural areas were closed. Sunday! There was a Chinese restaurants which was of course open, so I ended up having a nice buffet there before taking the bus to the airport. While my stay there was only three days, walking around through so much of the old town of Bilbao and San Sebastian, getting to see the major museums and experiencing pinxhos culture did not make me feel as if I had missed out on much. Certainly I’d passed over numerous gems, but at the same time it was so nice there that I promised myself to go back there again.

Branguli at C.C.C.B

I had never heard of the name Josep Branguli before moving to Barcelona and going to his exhibit at C.C.C.B. This is understandable for as a documentary photographer capturing the urban metamorphosis and social transformations at the beginning of the 20th century he is a single person amongst many. His pictures of small factories employing a handful of people, and the large ones replacing them are done as artfully as the pictures of workers in social setting. Yet these are not unique. What distinguishes Branguli from others is his collection of Spanish Civil War photography.

Branguli was born in 1879 and worked as a photographer in Barcelona from 1909 until his death in 1945. Unlike Capa, Chim and Taro, the photographers most associated with documenting the conflict, Branguli did not have to flee before Franquist troops. This meant that he was not moving around from front to front and was able to document most of the important events of Barcelona. As a well-known resident documenting the conflict but not a member of any of the groups later banned by Franco, Branguli was able to remain in Barcelona and take photos after the Second Republic finally collapsed. In these years Branguli focus shifted from the social and material changes imposed by capitalist logic to the topography of a repressive police state.

One of the events that Branguli captured on cellulose included images from the Tragic Week of 1909. It was during this week that Republicans, Socialists and Anarchists fought against clergy and the army following unrest against pay, working conditions and anti-militarism. It was during this period that many overstated stories that had the intention of delegitimizing the secular parties purportedly initiating the fighting were circulated in the press. One of the news stories circulated to discredit the Republic was that their anarchist allies were digging up the corpses of nuns and priests throughout the region and dancing with them. Branguli’s picture shows that bodies were indeed de-interred, yet subsequent historiography show how this only happened in a few places and was not at all a systematic desecration as was spoken of in Catholic.

This particular picture is interesting not just as it gave validity to the King and Catholic Church’s claims of moral authority but in a way also undermines it. The influence of the Catholic Church in Spain was and still is profound. The peasants at that time, if literate at all, were so only in the teaching of the Bible and the catechism unless they’d been able to be educated in one of Fransisco Ferrer’s handful of modern schools. One of the Catholic articles of faith at the time was that those that who had lived a holy life would decay slower, as evident by the use of holy relics, and thus the picture of the body presents a paradox. To the viewer, the holy body is indeed removed from it’s grave and the body is also not as holy as claimed by the authorities on holiness. What is indeed presented is the same sort of problem as the stinking body of Zosima, something that I doubt would have been lost by Branguli.

Buenaventura Durruti's Funeral Procession

Another important event that Branguli was able to visually preserve for posterity was the funeral procession of Buenavetta Durruti, an Italian anarchist activist and writer inspired like many others to leave their homelands and come to Spain in order to assist the Second Republic from a fascist military coup. He was, however, shot and killed after only a week in Spain. Despite his marginal role in the war, the numbers of people clearly show that he was someone that gave voice to many of those fighting for their lives.

Also captured by Branguli was the arrival of Heinrich Himmler in October in 1940. His presence is not only evidence of the collusion between Fascist Spain and Nazi Germany, but hints at the deeper collaboration between these two nations. This shouldn’t be too surprising considering that Spain did in 1492 part of what Germany was then attempting to accomplish. Thus, with the lessons of the Peninsular War surely at the back of their minds, the Gestapo and Spanish secret police sought to root out the Catalan nationalists and other classes that might rupture their organicist ideals.

While Branguli’s work was published in several Spanish revistas I’ve yet to find evidence that he was published outside of it. After the war in Spain, it was a taboo issue inside the country and the rest of the world now shifted their attention to the conflict building up into a fever pitch around Germany. Thus that he is still somewhat of a hometown secret becomes more understandable, though perhaps with a little bit of luck some sixty plus years after his death he’ll be getting the recognition that he deserves.

P.O.U.M. Exhibit

Today I went to the Catalyunya National History Museum to see an exhibition on the 75th anniversary of formation of the P.O.U.M. (Partido Obreador Unido Marxist) and was rather underwhelmed by the small room made in their memory. Though their time on the world stage was small, the role they played was large. It is not just Ken Loach and George Orwell who use this group as a way for explaining the conflicts going on within Spain’s Republican Government and the country as a whole during the period of Civil War, but the many International Brigadeers who came to fight on the Republican side voluntarily and were so taken by their experience they made efforts equal to their time on the battlefield to make sure that it would be truthfully recorded for posterity. In fact, this conflict is the first historical occurrence of a concerted, international effort on the part of the defeated to lay out their mistakes, weaknesses and try to arrive at an after the fact assessment of what they should have done differently.

Heroic, unique and thoroughly documented in narrative though their actions may have been, history has not been kind to the P.O.U.M. The dearth of materials curators were able to display is understandable given the P.O.U.M. was a vehicle of the Trotskyist Opposition. Members were under attack from Fascist and Stalinist elements prior to General Franco taking control of Spain. After Franco’s victory physical items indicating membership or sympathy became cause for arrest or disappearance. The slanderous or true accusation by someone to the authorities also meant that you could become one of the hundreds of thousands of Spaniards killed in political purges against the socialists, anarchists, communists, pacifists, militant progressives, anti-clericalists and unionists. As such, the display cases consisted only of red cards indicating membership with the group, several books, pamphlets and newspapers published by the party. It is likely that other artifacts were destroyed out of a sense of self-preservation.

What was the most compelling aspect of this exhibit were the few dozen pictures showing group members not simply fighting on the front lines, but relaxing together on the beach and smiling for the camera in a moment of joy, or sitting at a cafe. These pictures showed a human side that appreciated pleasant distraction and social gatherings in a way that so often gets ignored in discussions of political mobilization and conflict. It showed that those fighting on the battlefields were not doing so simply because they were ideologues who craved conflict or automatons following orders but as they sincerely sought to gain for themselves a manner of living that would allow them to extract more pleasure from life through a better standard of living and working less. Though they recognized that they would need to take a militant stance as the only way they could possibly achieve their desires given the social conditions they inherited, their motivation for doing to was the very opposite of the military ideal, specifically the desire for joy and play. And it is in this humanization of forces that the CNHM did a great job in presenting the P.O.U.M. to those who made it to their 75th anniversary exhibit.