A guided meditation

Refresh yourself with this soothing, guided meditation by Jason Headley.

RIP Burt, friend of bees

"A good day is when no one shows up...
and you don't have to go anywhere. ~ Burt"

Burt
source: Boing Boing

Hippy Burt, the cool guy bee keeper vegetarian, source and inspiration for the cruelty-free company Burt's Bees, has moved on. Back in the day the company he co-founded screwed him but he wasn't fazed.

"Shavitz didn’t seem to mind missing out on 93 percent of a windfall.

“In the long run, I got the land, and land is everything,” he told a filmmaker for the 2013 documentary “Burt’s Buzz.” “Money is nothing really worth squabbling about. This is what puts people six feet under. You know, I don’t need it.”

This critique extended to corporate culture: “I had no desire to be an upward-mobile rising yuppie with a trophy wife, a trophy house, a trophy car,” he said."

~Washington Post

I loved that guy. Happy trails Burt.

Crown of Aragon

We're leaving for the Museu Nacional d'Art de Catalunya in a few minutes so I'm gobbling down my oatmeal and hurriedly slurping my coffee as I write this. The museum is famous for its collection of Gothic art, all from territories once ruled by the Crown of Aragon. M. loves Gothic art so he's really looking forward to it ... me not so much ... though I do enjoy the strange old faces of Gothic baby Jesus and I want to see anything from the world ruled by the Crown of Aragon.

Photos to follow.

Apps

A kind of translation

Google's handy little app, Word Lens, explains to us why the front door lock on our apartment building was removed and why there are no lights on the stairs, kind of..

Layers of time

I just want to say again that I'm amazed by the number of archaeological and historical treasures found here on the Iberian Peninsula. Don't worry. I'm not going to launch into something complicated. It's just that I've been reading Wikipedia again and writing about it helps me sort things out.

Roman ruins below glass floor at Lisbon H & M store

Okay. It's a wee bit complicated. But, if I got it right, most scientists agree that the million-year-old skeleton found in Spain is the remains of one of our first ancestors (genus homo) to appear on the new hominid branch (clade) of the evolutionary tree. This, of course, was after the the Pan–Homo split when we hominids broke off from the bonobos and chimpanzees who were, by that time, living on their own separate Panina clade (branch) of the tree. Feel free to correct me.

You know how breakups go. When sex and/or love is involved, it can be slow, messy business. Think your first high school heartbreak was bad? This one took millions of years. The number of millions varies wildly, depending on who you consult, but we do know this. To this day, 94% of our DNA here on the hominina clade is the same as that of our cousins on the bonobo/chimpanzee panina clade. Hard telling what branches we'll all find ourselves on if/when google ever gets those glasses right or humanoid robots start cloning themselves.

Dancers with Gaudi's Sagrada Familia in distance.
Barcelona

But for now, I can say we are pretty settled in Barcelona. We've walked miles through the city, seen it from one hill and another and explored ruins above and below ground. We also walked through one of the last remaining entrances to the ancient, long gone, Roman city of Barcino. That especially felt like time travel. We passed below arches that have stood a millennia in a changing world while remaining rooted in their own. Talk about roots, we inherited our alphabet from the Romans.

Remnant of city of Barcino upon
and around which the Barcelona, Spain of today is built.

Anyway... we also walked the beach. And yes, the beach in Barcelona is one of those delightful European beaches that everyone's heard about, the kind that scandalize puritanical busybodies everywhere. Women go topless wherever they feel like and, if they so chose, and men and women shower the sand off their nude bodies at any of the handy outdoor shower spots along the boardwalk.

And hey! Speaking of freedom, congratulations to the US Supreme Court for striking down gay marriage bans nationwide! The 5-4 decision was just announced this hour, thus bringing America one step closer to the freedom and equality everyone deserves. Well done!

Terrible Twos

Frank and Baby Chance

Frank is currently smack dab in the middle of the Terrible Twos. Yes, he's darling, charming and wonderful but at two years old proving his independence and prowess is a top priority. Anything can turn into a challenge. As nearly five-year-old Leo told me on the phone yesterday, "Frank couldn't come to the park with us today because he had a meltdown". This photo of Frank with Baby Chance says it all. You talkin' to me? Trust me. You do not want to mess with me!

Happy Father's Day and Summer Solstice

Me and a few of the gkids

Happy Father's Day to all you dads and Happy Summer Solstice as well. It's a great combination for a day. Definitely, indulge yourselves today. May you live long and always bask in the love of your family and children.

My own dear dad is long gone. Unfortunately, he didn't live long enough to see me pull out of the tailspin of my early years, though he predicted one day I would. Thank you for that. Neither did he live long enough to meet any of his own wonderful grandchildren. I attribute that to his meat, cigarettes and booze heavy diet and lack of exercise. It was the curse of his times and still is for a great many  people. He was otherwise a bull of man and a great dad.

And, as it's summer solstice for everyone in the northern hemisphere, Happy Summer Solstice to all. Also, Happy Winter Solstice to everyone in the southern hemisphere. The sun is just now making it's turn back your way.

Madrid to Barcelona

Madrid train station

Took the high speed train from Madrid to Barcelona yesterday. It topped out at 185 mph or, as this is Europe, 298 km an hour. Counting two stops, the trip took three hours. We're here for a month, staying in a professor's airbnb apartment in the El Raval neighborhood. Wikipedia tells me El Raval is also known as Chinatown and is "historically infamous for its nightlife and cabarets, as well as prostitution and crime". The entry also mentions some notable past residents of El Raval, which includes three writers and a serial killer known as "the vampyre of Barcelona".

View from the patio

While we love local color, it further notes that,  "El Raval has changed significantly in recent years and due to its central location has become a minor attraction of Barcelona"  and I'm okay with that. Even if the neighborhood has lost a bit of its edge, it's still interesting. Last evening the fellow next door was practicing an opera solo and someone else played a lovely cello over the courtyard for about a half an hour. And, en route to the grocery store yesterday, we walked through a swarm of  20 to 40 something hipsters  in various degrees of outrageousness. Of course, for all it's liveliness, El Raval in no way compares to the outdoor cafe party scene of the neighborhood where we stayed in Madrid. There even the children played in the nearby park till midnight, as evidenced by their screams of excitement and delight, and the street parties went until 3, that's AM. But I can live with that. As usual, google images has plenty of photos of El Raval if you want an overview.

The neighbor birds

Our apartment, though most likely a million dollar place, is basically a long narrow hall partitioned into rooms with no windows in the middle and doors on both ends, giving it the feel of an open ended cave. Well, there is a window in the middle that opens onto an air shaft in the middle of the building but that's it. I'm not complaining. I just report. But, as I am always the one who flings open windows for more light and fresh air, it is a bit of an adjustment. M. Lee assures me that, after we see a few of Gaudi's famous Barcelona structures, this place will make more sense. I'm sure he's right. Anyway, I love walking narrow, winding medieval streets so what's not to love about this lovely place?

I'm writing this from the patio, a godsend located outside the kitchen at the back of the apartment. We are, as they say say in this part of the world, on the first floor. In the US it would be called the second floor. Anyway, someone, we are guess the professor, added the kitchen and patio. Metaphorically, you could say I am sitting in the canyon outside the backdoor of our cave. To my everlasting gratitude, there is blue sky above and many swallows nesting in the holes of the canyon walls, so I have the company of wildlife. An essential for my occasionally somewhat fragile state of mind.

The ruins of Spain

Early two-legged Earthling
National Archaeological
Museum of Spain

We spent the last two days at the National Archaeological Museum of Spain located here in Madrid. The minute you walk in the door they hit you with the fact that all of Spain is a huge archaeological treasure trove. We saw artifacts dating back 1.3 million years.

Because Spain is a stones throw from Africa and an inevitable destination along the Mediterranean trade routes from the middle east and Asia people, and prehistoric versions of people, have been mucking it up in Spain for a million years and, like people always do, they built and torn down, lost and left shit all over the place.

Gargoyle and me

In America, we marvel at how old something is our grandparents left behind. In Spain, loosen the dirt with a teaspoon, and you find something that someone dropped three thousand years ago. This doesn't mean that I now love Madrid but I do have an increased respect and curiosity about Spain itself. We're hoping to get to a few nearby historical sites before we leave the area but today it's back to Reina Sofia to see a bit more art.

Cloudy day in Madrid

Madrid museum crawl

Our window westward

Madrid. Hemingway loved the place, but I can't say it does much for me. Then again, if I lived in the golden haze of alcohol poisoning perhaps I'd see things differently. M. Lee has taken it to the next level and actually made it personal, even when it rains. In any case, it's clear that Madrid rewards those who start their day late. Even the church bells down the alley do not sound until 11 am. But we are here for the art and, so far, we've been to Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía once and the Museo Nacional Del Prado twice.

Our window eastward

Our day at Reina Sofia did not start well. The walk there was ok but we needed to find an ATM along the way and, especially in the morning, that is something of a false hope. Maybe it isn't fair to Madrid, but these days Istanbul is the gold standard and in Istanbul ATMs are everywhere, along with public bathrooms. Not so in Madrid. Both are extremely hard to come by. Well, actually it seems there are no public bathrooms in Madrid. You are, as they say, shit out of luck. As for the ATM, we circled the streets for I don't know how long before finding one, of all places, near the museum entrance. Like I said, it's personal.

Fable by El Greco
Prado
photo by Frans Vandewalle

Of course, both museums house the work of world class artists. If you like, take a quick peak here: The Prado and here: Reina Sofia. One painting in particular stood out at the Prado, El Greco's "Fable".  It is perhaps my personal favorite among all that I have seen this week. Yes, there are more important works at both museums, including the Prado's outstanding collection of royal portraits commissioned by the very kings and princes they portray. They are not only masterfully executed, but are meant to impress upon the viewer the authority and stability of monarchy but to me they seem repetitious and vain. Anyway, of the two museums, I prefer the more contemporary Reina Sofia.

So, today we are off to the archeological museum to see who and what lived here before it was Spain. Must remember to watch out for the pickpockets.