Fate loop: a situation in which every decision made leads to woe and another bad decision. Note that vacations become journeys only after experiencing one or more serious fate loops in which each decision takes you further from your destination.

Example of a travel fate loop:

1. Getting completely and utterly lost (so lost you can't find yourself on the map, or maybe you are without a map or the map is incomplete, or maybe your map is just totally incorrect. Maybe two cities are transposed. And maybe the inks on the map are mis-registered. Or maybe it shows a road that is not a road. Or maybe it is all of the above.).

2. Very bad food.

3. Hostile locals. (in this case a 4 or 5 year old kid in a playground who hissed at my son, "Immigrants aren't allowed on the slide. Immigrants are dirty." I replied for in a low guttural growl, "You're the dirty one you stinky pig face." Yes I harassed a kid, so sue me.).

4. Sick travel partners. (my nauseous pregnant wife).

5. A scary incident. (a gravedigger with a gimpy leg who popped out of a fresh grave in a deserted graveyard and offered me a beer).

6. Bad decision making.

7. Lost equipment.

8. Terrible weather.

9. And then when you are at your low, the discovery of something utterly great.

10. And finally escape from the fate loop.

I was having drinks with some of my brother's Spanish friends the other night when the talk turned to the 2008 election. The Europeans are rightfully angry at the US. Their anger is so deep they have essentially written us off as a corrupt nation. They fact that 1/2 the country voted against Bush and Co. in 2004 is essentially ignored (not to mention the fact that he didn't actually win the popular vote 2000). Generally speaking Europeans treat us as all gung ho Bush supporters.

When I apologetically explained that most of the country, even those of us who did not vote for Bush, did support the war initially because we believed the lies that were being told by the government I was greeted with incredulity. 'How could you have not seen through the lies?' they asked. 'How could you be so stupid.' No amount of contrition or explanation that we were a wounded nation susceptible to those spreading fear could convince my fellow beer drinkers that a majority of people in our nation now sees the war as national disgrace, a colossal and shameful mistake.

When the conversation came around to talking about the 2008 election I told them I thought the Republicans would lose for sure and they would lose to either Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama, I was greeted with disbelief. 'The Republicans will just steal this election too,' they said. They had never heard of Obama but when I explained he was was a young 1/2 Kenyan Senator from Illinois who had been against the Iraq war from the beginning, they were incredulous. 'No way,' they said, 'no way for Hillary either. America will vote Republican just as you did in 2004.' It was not long before they were essentially calling us warmongering racists and from their perspective that's probably what it looks like. This is now the image of our country amongst young liberal Europeans

I believe we will redeem ourselves. I believe the the current administration will be crushed in the 2008 election, and I believe we will elect someone who will remake our government so that we are once again proud of it and can once again be accepted as citizens of the world. We can't erase the wounds we've created, but perhaps, by being more true to our creed as a nation we can start to regain the world's respect. Mark my words you're going to hear a lot more about this Senator from Illinois in the near future. My vote will be for Obama in 2008.

Related: Obama's 2004 Convention Speech, New Yorker Profile

If this blog´s been feeling a bit lonesome it might be because I inadvertently turned on comment moderation... today I found several pages of comments waiting for me—sort of like being at camp and discovering a batch of misplaced letters. Anyway it was fun to read all the comments even if I accidentally managed to delete most of them (damn Spanish keyboards).
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We have a car. We are driving! When you've been trapped in a single house for a week this is liberation! I´ve driven around Spain several times but never in this direction... the countryside here is familiar in a roundabout way as I've seen it in scores of medieval paintings (in college I wrote many papers on bestiaries and illuminated manuscripts). So while I was driving I kept having moments somewhere between memory and deja-vu. Coming upon the walled city of Avila I recognized it from a 14th century illuminated manuscript. Looks virtually unchanged. Even the trees which seem fantastical in the illustrations are just the olive and almond trees they have in this area... I had a similar experience in the Dutch countryside a few years ago. Those clouds you always see in the Dutch masters, they are just the clouds they have in Holland.
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Speaking of invisible threads, here´s one that came via email from someone I haven't spoken to in 20 odd years... "Actually you and I had the same Spanish class when I was a Sophomore. Was our teacher's name Mrs Torres? Anyway I remember getting some Apple computer stuff from you, and I remember you let me borrow a disk (floppy disk no less) which you entitled "Late Night with Raul Gutierrez" - I really don't even remember what was on it now, but it was (ancient) Apple IIe stuff.¨
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Photos for Becky and Paul:




...
Random aside: I am typing this in a hotel bathroom, my family is asleep... it's about 1 in the morning. A minute ago I had to get something from the other room and my wife started. "Have you made the guacamole?" she asked both eyes open, but completely asleep. "What?" I answered. "Don't worry, you don't understand anything about guacamole," she replied.

Through the shut door I hear her chuckling to herself in her sleep.

When I was a kid my mother told me invisible threads connect us all together... She whispered this in my ear one night while trying to explain some life lesson, "Can you feel them?" she asked. And indeed in that moment I felt them tugging here and pulling there, hundreds of them, tied to all parts of my body. The lesson I forgot, but the image remained. For years, late at night I would wake up and imagine the threads connecting me to Ed 'Too Tall' Jones, the girl down the street with the trampoline in her backyard, my grandparents, and even Jimmy Carter. Sometimes I would kick my arms and legs and imagine the tugs being felt around the corner and on the other side of the world. Tonight we went to dinner with a friend here in Madrid who I met via this blog. In adult life it's easy to forget all those threads, but it's nice to know they are still there and that sometimes we can follow them all the way across the ocean to the person on the other side.

Jenn and I did our part for world jump day.

While our son played the part of the nink in the sink.

We've been in Madrid a week now and a week is about how long it takes before Jenn and I start seeking out comfort food (see previous post). For us that means Mexican or Korean. You would think Mexican food in Madrid would be a no-brainer, but Mexican friends who have tried scores of restaurants report nothing but heartbreak (Part of the problem is that most Spaniards don't have a taste for corn—"Corn is chicken feed," sniffed a Catalan friend—and part of the problem is that spicy food is almost unknown here.) So given this knowledge we decided to seek out a Korean restaurant on the assumption it would be run by Koreans and cater to Korean tourists... We ended up at Han Gang Restaurante Coreana at Calle Atocha, 94 and when we entered at 8:00 (super early by Madrid standards), the place was packed with a Korean bus tour, a good sign. The menu in translation was less promising, (chicken in catsup?), although Jenn said the Korean was correctly rendered. The other issue was the veal which was substituted for both beef and pork throughout the menu. Veal bulgogi? We weren't so brave. Veal mandoo was edible though. Jenn enjoyed her bibimbop and the panchan was normal (although skimpy). The kimchee was decent. I barbecued some chicken at the table which was fine, but not exactly Korean. Nothing was spicy. All in all not terribly authentic, but not the horror it might have been.

Afterwards we shared beers in a pleasant bustling square with my brother Ed and an English friend of his named Briony. Both had lived in Kyoto for several years and both had moved from there to Madrid (my brother now lives in Prague). Both also are died-in-the-wool ex-pats. Jenn and I (both failed ex-pats) had lots of questions primarily about the desire to keep moving versus the desire to nest. Two comments that stuck with me: "It's much more difficult as an ex-pat to go home a resume a 'normal' routine than it is to head off to a new city" and "The thing about being an ex-pat is if you feel depressed or stressed you tend to blame it on the city, it's never about you."

Ed enlightened us as to Czech drinking etiquette. "You don't talk. You drink and you contemplate your unhappiness. When you finish a beer, another is served immediately and you drink again. The Czech always see Americans laughing and talking and think there must be something wrong with them. 'They must be simple,' they think, 'How can they laugh with so much unhappiness in the world.'

Also in Prague never order a salad, especially if you are a man. Men eat meat."

Hmm.

What else? We saw a Moroccan guy with a large knife in his hand running down an alley being chased by a guy with a big stick. That was exciting.

I would complain about the heat but I just checked in and noted the weather in Brooklyn where it is both hotter and infinitely more humid, so I'll keep my mouth shut. Also soon we'll escape to Galicia where it is somewhat cooler. This will be good for me, a hater of heat and for Jenn who is pregnant with our #2 (almost 3 months now). See how I buried the lead?

That's it from here. Goodnight.

Sentences not likely to be heard in New York:

"I have just the thing for your son. Brain. It’s in the refrigerator and I can fry it with a bit of butter. It’s from a baby goat slaughtered just a few days ago. Little boys just love it."

"Don't be ridiculous, of course ducks have tongues. The tongue is the tastiest part of the bird. Pigeons also have tasty tongues... so hard to find these days."

"You have a choice between the pig's feet which have been boiled and then fried, or the dried cod."

"My favorite thing in the whole world, my very favorite thing: rooster comb. And here's the tragedy, the portions are always so small."

Last night I was startled out of a deep sleep and led by the hand down the stairs to a loud room crowded with well dressed dinner guests. "A wedding perhaps," I said to myself and surveyed the crowd for familiar faces. Everyone was turned away from me engrossed in conversation. No-one looked familiar so I pressed on. Above the din, someone called my name and I turned to find a table of people I hadn’t seen in years.

There was Lee in his natty plaid jacket from Ireland, Tia Elva eating a big plate of cabrito, and even Marie who vanished when I was 16, "Hey" she said, "long time."

Everyone immediately and simultaneously started in with questions about the baby and Jenn and my life while I was still standing there. "Get him a chair," someone shouted. I tried to fill them in, but my mouth was cottony and I was having a hard time keeping focused so instead I listened because although there were questions, everyone also had so much to say. As I went around the table kissing and hugging everyone, each person would draw me close and whisper a little nothing. The table was so crowded that by the time I made it around, before I could settle in or even taste the wine I was pulled away again.... out of the loud room, and up the stairs. Soon I found myself back in bed in the cold blue light of early morning. Jenn and the baby were cuddled together sleeping silently on the far side big bed and I, stuck in the middle registers between dream and consciousness, found myself immobile, still between worlds trying in vain to remember all that had been said.

In the morning I told Jenn the dream. "Koreans say never to follow the dead," she shuddered... "Never go with them. I’m not kidding." But the Mexican view is quite the opposite. My grandmother told me one she had danced with her dead brother. "I was like a star of the cinema," she would say. Even in the middle of the dream knew she would never dance like that again. "But never trust them," she warned, "the dead only tell you what you want to hear, because they know life is short and want you to be happy in it. Maybe their lies are so sweet because in their own lives they were whispered enough of them."

We have been in the cocoon of family and haven't spent much time with Madridleños yet, but from the people we have encountered the topics of the moment seem to be:

1. Zidane's headbutt - The popular sentiment so far seems to be squarely with Zidane. As one man put it today, "If you talk too much about my mother, I go crazy."

2. Crime - Everyone we've met has a firsthand story about petty crime. "Totally out of control" was the phrase used most often. I have been warned not to bring "la machina" (my camera) into Madrid proper. "You will be robbed for sure. 100%," I've been told. People have a hard time believing New York is safe even at 3am. My statement "I carry my camera everywhere. Openly. On the subway. At night," is met with disbelief, almost as if my fellow New Yorkers are rubes for not robbing me.

3. Tabloid figures, especially Spanish royalty and demi-royalty - Note it is not cool to question the Prince´s wisdom in naming his daughter Leonor. Note when someone talks about the Spanishness of the Queen, you should not blurt out, ¨but she´s Greek.¨ Also it is considered nothing short of absurd that you have never heard of Letizia Ortiz. To brief yourself on these very important matters please visit the Spanish Royal Family´s very own website.

Aside: Is there anything more sublime than Clifford Brown´s trumpet on Dinah Washington´s version of Summertime while sitting out in the dark watching fireflies in the trees and lightning flash in the sky over the Spanish hills?

Except for the animated banner ads, I really dig David Byrne's blog. Check out today's post on Marfa/Donald Judd/Money etc.

I miss Marfa... the light there is delicious.

It is unusually dry in Madrid. Pull yourself from the pool and within what seems like an instant even your hair will lose all trace moisture. The weather, as it is everywhere, is out of whack. They call it African air, normal in Gibralter, but strange here. There has been unusual heat, and clouds, and wind, but today at least was nice, but oh so dry.

We are in a neighborhood where everyone has high hedges cut into geometric shapes and the trees look as if they were designed by Dr. Suess... lots of grass and sky around the houses. In the back a spectacular fruit and vegetable garden full of tomatoes and strawberries and lettuce. Our city kid son quickly shook off the plane flight and gleefully set off exploring the place... he declines to wear clothes and toddles around happily and shamelessly collecting rocks, observing ants, eating strawberries, and just being a curious little puppy of a kid.

Nothing rotten to report. Happy times. Happy times.

Some recent favorite Wikipedia entries:

The Fallen Astronaut

The Heavy Metal Umlaut

The Space Character

Señorita Cometa

My flickr favorites.

Some stories have no beginning and no end, just a middle. Or maybe just a beginning... or just an end. I can't decide.

On the corner of Clinton and Atlantic today at sunset a beautiful girl in her twenties was crying her eyes out inside a beaten up Chevy Nova. Her face, more rural and southern than one generally runs into in Brooklyn, was wet and puffy, a marked contrast to the two flowers she had placed in her hair and the vintage party dress she was wearing. She waited in the passenger's seat―the driver's seat being empty save for a crushed box of Marlboro cigarettes. The girl did not notice the 19 month old boy sitting on his dad's shoulders pointing her out. She did not notice the dad pick up his camera and then decide to put it down without shooting. She did not notice the Yemeni women who passed close by adjusting their headscarfs to look into the car and she did not notice the wind which picked up her brown hair and scattered it around her face sticking it to her cheeks. She did not even notice when the little boy, now down from his perch, walked within a few feet of the car's open window to offer a stick for solace nor the tears welling up in his eyes when she did not look down or accept his offering.