Back from Spain
I’ve neglected to post for so long! Happy New Year, everyone, and hope my readers haven’t given up on me for good. Am back from a fortnight in Spain, mainly in Madrid and Andalusia, having the time of my life with some friends. Now I’m both dreading the new semester and ready for work again, although there’s too much of it to complete in too short a time.
I managed to get a good amount of the back of the cashmere vest done, but it’s boring stockinette, so no pictures. Instead, here are some of the places I visited in Spain. The best part was hanging out with my friends and arguing about matters historical and political, Spanish, Indian and others, but I also visited a huge number of cathedrals, palaces and a couple of mosques.
Seeing the results of both the medieval efforts to physically efface the traces of Visigothic, Moorish and Jewish life in Andalusian cities, as well as the contemporary efforts to "restore" them "as they had been" left me with lots of unanswered questions and ambivalent feelings about material traces, historical memory and the past in the present. To say nothing of how monuments and communities are intertwined in the minds of people and states, and destruction of monuments seems a tireless attempt in history not only to strike at communities, but also somehow to undo and cleanse the past. We’ve seen that happen only too recently in India, in 1992 with the destruction of the Babri mosque. There was a desultory gathering at the Royal Chapel at Granada to commemorate the Reconquista with some military and fascist slogans and symbols, and I unwittingly landed up there on the very day it had happened many centuries ago: 2 Jan 1492. This desultory demonstration in the heart of what is now a tourist shopping district in downtown Granada with recent Arab immigrants selling "ethnic stuff" from Persia to Malaysia, including Hare Rama T-shirts, Radha-Krishna kitsch and stuff we see in Tibetan markets in India. It was all very heady, ironic and weird.
Nevertheless, the cities and monuments seem to defy this attempt (she says, romantically) and incorporate into themselves multiple traces of community, interaction, conflict and cooperation. History, as usual, is messy and mixed: gives historians stuff to pontificate about and politicians a headache. Anyway, nuff said, now look at the photos.
Welcome back! I love the aquaduct ones! I’ve realized that I’m particularly fond of repeated patterns, like the arches.
I like the yarn shop in the post above, too. I wish I’d taken a picture or two in a very cool shop in Helsinki, where there was in particular more color options in relatively fine wool, for as intricate a fair isle or scandinavian pattern you wanted.
Hey, good to be back. What I loved about the aqueduct was not just the sheer size but the way the lower part of it looks like a reflection in water, almost, in that photo at the top. It’s that uniform and symmetrical.
Need to catch up on all my blog reading, but what a bummer, the semester’s already begun
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