Strange Fruit

On occasion, the most unsettling events are ones that possibly only you can understand at that time. This particular one came in the form of an American in Valencia.

It was Tuesday night, two nights before I was to leave for Barcelona at 6:40 in the morning. After dinner I was invited by two Americans with the Australians to hit up Finnegan's, which I reluctantly accepted on a carpe diem attitude in contrast with a feel fine for class attitude. Now one of the Americans had her boyfriend in for the break, and he seemed an agreeable sort to me, with a firm handshake and a look-you-in-the-eye carriage. They bought soft drinks from the bar and snuck in their liquor, as I more or less silently sipped my Killian's. A Brit to my back was bent over in deep concentration on a paperback while Thin Lizzy hung from the speakers like an invisible but weighty aural fog, brushed by the antics and laughter of my Western table-neighbors. After this scene ended we met up with Callam and went to his apartment near Plaça de l'Ajuntament, where several Belgians, Germans, Frenchmen, and his Swedish girlfriend were enjoying themselves. At this point the boyfriend began speaking loudly about American foreign policy matters, etc. in a very jingoistic way with several of the foreigners in succession. A postcard nightmare, my stomach was tightening and I had an increased heartrate. I told those who were within earshot, quietly, to please understand that the viewpoints he was expressing were not representative of most Americans. They laughed and said "We understand, don't worry!" Later I wondered how much asking that question further scrambled their vision of "The American," and whether I should just stay silent in the face of monolithic policies.

Now he was speaking with someone and said ..."and we assembled the largest army in history, seven million people!" At this point, I had to interject on factual grounds with "Actually, the Chinese have the largest standing army in the world, at 200 million (thanks Shawn Wick for throwing out that completely off-the-mark number many months ago, but at least you were right in relative terms)." He immediately yelled at room-clearing volume "Shut up! You're biased! That's not true, they're forced into it!" By the end of "Shut up," I had already lost control of my facial expression and my jaw was wide open, my eyes staring. I managed to slowly ask, "How am I biased?" (Mind you we'd shared almost no words, certainly not on anything belying any kind of politics or social matters, up to this point) Just as aggressive as ever he continued with some specifics I cannot remember (due to my remaining dwelling on the shockingness of his first reaction) and ended this round with "Trust me, you DON'T want to argue with me about this!" After two seconds more pause, all I said was "No, no I don't," hoping that was the end of this encounter. Instead he delivered a finishing line of "SO SHUT THE FUCK UP!" and turned immediately back to continue cultural intervention.

I could not believe what had just happened. I am quite sure that I have not been that disrespected since I came to Georgia Tech in 2004. I had to sit staring into space for about three minutes just running over in my mind what had taken place. The music was loud enough and conversation abundant enough that it had not been a needle-rip kind of moment, thankfully, which prevented more spread embarassment. After a few minutes when I could find the girlfriend alone I explained to her what had happened, but just as I finished the part about "they're forced into it," she grabbed my arms and demanded, "But you know they are, right?" "No, it's a factual issue, but that's not the-" "You KNOW that, right?" "Factually he's-" "No, he's right here, you understand that it doesn't count because they're forced into it!" "This isn't even the point!" I had to admit after about thirty seconds of this wrangling that her boyfriend was right, just so I could explain the _real_ issue of the disrespect. She did not seem to think he had comitted an error worth confronting him over, leaning more into the thorn of disbelief. The very few people I was able to come to some consensus over the issue with (away and in more private settings) did not seem to share the same acuteness of shock that I held.

Events like that make me wonder how "right" I am about my fundamental judgment of situations. Was I really wrong to feel so grossly disrespected? Had he committed nothing more displeasing than the Clemsonians who declared loudly, but not aggressively, that as Americans they would say stupid things? Was I wrong to intervene on a purely factual basis? (I later learned that I was at least right in that the Chinese have the largest standing army.) I don't know what shifts the doubt other than someone confiding to me their own respect for me, which I think is the "best" compliment I can receive from most anyone - and I also think it is one of the best that I give.

The Consolation of Sufism

Yesterday was a good day, especially considering the kind of day it could have been. On Friday, rain was predicted from Friday evening lasting through this coming Thursday. Awakening on Saturday, the weather was instead quite pleasant under a blazing blue sky. There was a kind of festival at the Calatrava bridge very close to my apartment on the Turia where various bodegas and other food and wine vendors from the Comunitat Valenciana had brought large amounts of their wares for vending at the pavilions there. Ten euros got us ten tickets, five for a cup of wine each and five for a sampling of food each, as well as a nifty carboard hole-tray for perfect maneuvering of an also complimentary wine glass and small bowl. There were several hundred Valencians there, relaxedly sampling the fruits of their great comunidad autónoma. It was during this pleasant event that I realized how low stress my life was in comparison with anything I had experienced in the United States, related directly to the lack of a need to commute. I had no worry of planning for anything, which in the US and in Atlanta especially always couples with it the stress of planning for travel time. Here is a city of almost one million people that just do not have the harried rat race, a city with the metropolitan population of Birmingham, Alabama in a space that is walkable in two hours and without such traffic and commuting. We are fools to continue to live that way of life in the US.

Later that evening was a series of events under the umbrella term of Nit en Vela (White Night in Valencian) that had the greatest highlight for me at two AM in Plaza de la Virgen, where a group of three musicians and a DJ crafted "ethnic" music as it was billed, which translated to music from the Middle East and points towards the Orient. In delivery it was really, really good stuff - certainly the only truly good music I've heard over here with the exception of the flamenco performance. The percussionist had an instrument that was something like a cross between a djembe and a tabla, and his extremely versatile hands, fingers, and sense of rhythm lent me to focus on his part. After a bit a whirling dervish came out, something I'd always wanted to see, and this performance beat my expectations. The way the dervish spun around a fixed axis with such fervor and the body poised in such reverence formed a natural invitation for the spectators to become a part of this search for a divine connection. My rising elation, however, was broken by those with whom I was standing - the Americans once again. "What is that kind of music?" one of them asked. "It's a Middle Eastern, or maybe Persian, kind of music," I replied, ready to have my eyes drawn again to the increasingly focused dervish. "I think it's defintely Indian," they replied. Rather than explain that due to the rhythmic and scale structure it was probably not, I just let the dervish whisk it away from me and take it to the Architect. Another to the side remarked, "Man, you'd have to be smokin' some really strong shit to want to watch that!" An greater affront to the right to worship. "This is amazing" was my reply. The next number was an Indian one, and most of the crowd had an excited smile on their face and a significant amount of groove in their thangs. We came to get down, and they provided the environment it takes; they connected us to the musical Brahman.

Now I only have a small amount of time before the great adventure of Barcelona > ITC > (road trip?) begins. I take flight on Thursday.