Olive Me

Now that I’ve told everyone not to go to Barcelona in August (same old reasons you’re not supposed to head for Paris or Rome: nobody’s here except everyone from elsewhere, and all those lovely shops that close), I see the Palau de la Música Catalana has a reason to be in town every single night this month.

For instance, can you get there by Sunday, August 22nd? If so, you can make one of the most intriguing shows of the Palau 30′ a 30-minute concert series. That night, Palau 30′ features Consul Grau and Montserrat Carles on castanyoles (in Spanish, castañuelos, in English castanets). Who knew those ultra-portable percussion devices were invented by the Phoenicians 3000 years ago? That’s what the Palau website tells me––their way of pointing out I shouldn’t be surprised to hear there are hotshot Catalan castanyoles players.

Palau 30′ is part of the Festival Mas i Mas, and is doing it up with Fado, Tango, Jazz, Gospel, Flamenco, you name it, something every day in August for just 7 Euros (if you’re lucky enough to get the online advance booking system to work) or 8 Euros at the door. The concerts are in the Chamber Music Hall, so if you haven’t seen the main hall you’ve still got to find another way to do that (they do have daily tours, though it’s more fun to see it by going to a concert).

Then there’s Rumba Catalana a flamenco form developed by Catalan gypsies in the 1950s. It’s making a comeback, at least in Barcelona, and Papawa, some of the best musicians bringing it back into the mainstream now, are playing Thursday nights in the Palau courtyard. Concerts go from 9 to 11pm and they’re free, but go early because space is limited.

The free concerts are part of the Palau’s PaLounge series. There’s something every night except Saturdays through August 29th. Mondays there’s Cuban music, Tuesdays are for Tango, Wednesdays feature contemporary singer-songwriters, Thursdays there’s the Rumba Catalana, Fridays it’s Brazilian and Sundays, Celtic.

For the schedule, visit the website of the Palau de la Música Catalana and click on the +info area at the top splashed with news about Agost. You can view the site in English though the schedule pdfs are available only in Catalan and Castellano.

Wait a minute, I remember that face from somewhere.  Yes, he’s back, hanging on subway walls and lampposts in Barcelona, sometimes staring out alone, sometimes looming amongst other scoundrels like Berlusconi, Aznar, and Putin.  W is now part of the Catalan socialists’ red-hot, retro-designed, European Parliament election campaign.  The copy: “Poden treure’ ns de la crisi els que ens hi van ficar?” Do you really think the ones who got us into this mess are going to be the ones to get us out of it?

The New Yorkers I’ve shown around Barcelona always seem to connect easily to the energy of the Catalan capital.  They get its contrasts, I think, of seediness and elegance, of old and new, and its palpable creative and mercantile drive.  When they return to the Big Apple, they invariably find themselves jonesing for more.  For a while, that big screenfull of lovesick images in Vicki Cristina Barcelona provided a fix.  But now what?  I might have suggested heading downtown to eavesdrop on vacationing Catalans as they ransack Century 21.  But the Institut Ramon Llull, a Catalan language and culture organization, has come up with something far more tasteful:  Catalan Days — an arts mashup spanning music, dance, literature, and food.  April 15 through May 20 at venues around New York City.

The Film Forum in New York City is showing Japanese director Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1984 film, “Antonio Gaudi” starting today through next Tuesday, November 4.  Details and tickets are available online at the Film Forum’s website. (more…)

As far as I’m concerned, you don’t need scientists prying into DNA samples to prove that Columbus was no gentleman from Verona.  All you need is a day with Joan Santolaria, a geographer from Barcelona who captains the antique Catalan fishing vessel El Rafael out of the port of Palamós.  The man possesses precisely the sly charm, curious intellect, quick step, and wildly curly red hair one would expect from a Catalan pirate of Columbus’s magnitude. (more…)

I love Barcelona in the winter. There’s plenty going on, and fewer hoards of visitors to share it all with. “Un cos sense limits — A Body without Limits,” through January 27th at Fundació Joan Miró is where I’d head if I were there right now. (more…)