Mid-summer round up, and a podcast interview

This morning, at 8 am sharp, a number of loud explosions marked, as they do every year, the beginning of the week-long Festa Major de Gràcia, which is the neighborhood bash in which streets are decorated and crowds come to drink, dance, and celebrate the summer. It’s a noisy departure from the quiet which usually reigns in Barcelona in August, which is traditionally the time when many Europeans take their legally-mandated month of vacation, and the Catalans are no exception.

Because my next entry (or two) will very likely be dominated by shots of the decorated streets, I’ve decided to post what I’ve taken around the city so far this summer, starting from mid-June, to now. Most of the pics are from the Poblenou area, as well as the “three chimneys” park near Paral.lel.

As the title suggests, I’m also including a link below to a podcast interview which I did earlier this spring as a part of a project called “All the Brians”, where Brian Alexander travels around the world interviewing all the Brians he can find. In my interview I talk about life in Barcelona, street art, the ongoing conflict between Catalonia and the Spanish State, as well as what it’s like to live as a Brian in Barcelona. It’s long, but I think it’s worth the listen. Here is the link.

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TV Boy honors two very different Barcelona masters; and another mention!

I’d like to start this post by giving a shoutout (do people still use that term? Is there an emoji for that?) to Barcelona Segway Tours, who have recently included this blog in the rankings of the best Barcelona travel blogs in English. Be sure to check out the link here, as I am in some fantastic company!

As for today’s images, they come from an artist who makes regular appearances here, none other than TVBoy. Whether it was intentional or not, the Italian artist this time seems to prove the multiple intelligence theory posed by Howard Gardner in his 1983 book. Without getting into too much detail and the debate which accompanies any theory of intelligence and learning (read more here), the two most recent works here in Barcelona, of Antoni Gaudí and Lionel Messi, show two examples of two very distinct types of genius. According to Gardner, Messi would probably be considered a genius in the body-kinesthetic type intelligence, which governs movement and agility. On the other hand, Gaudí would probably fit into the visual-spatial intelligence type, if his masterpieces that punctuate the Catalan capital’s landscape are any indicator. That’s not to say that Messi may not be a great painter, or that Gaudí couldn’t have scored a few goals in his time, but it does show that there can be more than one definition of genius. I have yet to find mine. Have you discovered yours?

Gone but not forgotten…street art as ephemera

Just after the point where my street changes names from Bruniquer to Terol–it actually does so 4 times before finally ending–there is a dead end street/alleyway where you can find a blue doorway which has been decorated, and over-decorated constantly during the time I’ve had this blog. Saturday morning, I noticed that the artist TVboy had pasted up a giant image of Frida Kahlo dressed as a tourist, complete with an I ♥ BCN t-shirt. I snapped a quick photo, but as is often the case in sunny Barcelona, the time of day left a heavy shadow. On my way back home just two hours later, the sun had changed position , and I was hoping to get a better shadow-free shot. It wasn’t to be, however, as someone had come by and sprayed an orange cover over Frida, leaving just her eyes free. While I was a bit dismayed at not having been able to get my photo, I don’t personally see this as an act of destruction. I prefer to see it as part of the natural process, albeit quite accelerated, of what happens to art that is in the street, unprotected by vigilant museum security, alarms, glass casing, or velvet ropes.

Something similar happened to another piece by TvBoy which gained international media attention. The artist had pasted up an image of international football superstars Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo locked in a passionate kiss, just before one of the famous “Clasico” matches that take place between eternal rivals Barça and Real Madrid. It was near Plaça Catalunya, one of the most highly-traversed points in the Catalan capital. I won’t include a photo here, as my personal policy for this blog is that all photos must be taken by me, and in this case, I missed my opportunity, as not only did someone remove the image, but the entire abandoned petrol kiosk which hosted the image was removed. A bit overdramatic, in my opinion. In any case, here is a link to the Ronaldo-Messi photo, and another that was placed in Italy near the Vatican just this week of  Pope Francis and US President Donald Trump.