Mordwen’s lounge

For whatever reason, I didn’t diarise the Gaudi or the fountains, or the amazing chocolate shop, Cacao Sampaka. I did take photos though. Read more

So here I am on the other side of the world, and I walk into the Institute of Contemporary Culture… and there, on a poster, is a photo of me and Simon and Christina and Catherine naked in Melbourne one rainy morning in 2001. Of course, you can’t tell it’s us, because there are 4000 other bedraggled naked people with us. Yes, I’m talking about the Spencer Tunick shoot. I immediately burst into hysterical laughter and try to explain to the bemused folk around me that “Soy yo! Acqui!” pointing at the spot on the photo I know we were lying.

And after that, the Queer Pride march and meeting the lovely goth types Mireille and Duncan and Quim (short for Joaquim. I’ve explained to him what it’s slang for in England and being a good gay boy he thinks that’s very funny.)

Tarantula count for David: 0. There are however turtles, teensy-weensy turtles. Lots of them. Cutest ever. And squirrels. And hamsters. And pigeons that seem to be either trying to liberate the finches in the cages or get in there with them, I’m not sure which.Yesterday was interesting… the morning saw a visit to the Museu de la Xocolate for my Dad. Can I just say Omigod, that was the most divine hot chocolate I have ever had in my life?

The afternoon was spent on the beach. The water was fine, the Jewish girl from New York was gorgeous.

And this is for Jonathan, if he’s reading. A while back, Jonathan gave me a mix tape. For anyone who’s seen High Fidelity, you understand the delicacy and effort that goes into creating the perfect mix tape. In it was a note that said, presciently, that if anything went wrong between us, the tape would be a record of how we had been at that point. I haven’t been able to listen to the tape since we fell out in February, but I brought it with me. I love the tape. It’s perfect. So I listened to it for the first time again yesterday evening, and all the words mean different things now or the same thing with an extra layer. It’s still a perfect tape. Thank you for that, Mister J.

I planned to go to a Senegalese hip hop band at the Apollo but it turned out that cost €18. I’m hemorrhaging money right now, so that wasn’t going to happen. Tried to scam my way in (”I’m an Australian journalist… see, here’s my MEAA card… “). Didn’t get in but did meet two Spanish freelance music journos who took me to a bar where they played some very funky ambient stuff with a bit of spoken word over it… similar to some of the stuff that Jonathan plays but without the dub. More along the Patti Smith line.

Barcelona was supposed to be this big party city but so far — apart from the influx of Harleys for some convention — it’s been fairly low-key for me. Every time I have tried to go to a big bash, something has intervened. I think the lessons so far are not to worry when things don’t work out the way I planned… I need to learn to go with the flow a little more.

It’s all very well to know theoretically that language is arbitrary and all meaning is deferred, to start to grasp Derrida’s notions of supplementarity. It’s another entirely to be surrounded by a tongue you barely comprehend and slowly feel those arbitrary connections being made, the meanings attaching themselves temporarily, hesitantly, to the concepts in my head but more likely to other signifiers… layers and layers… so that “quiesero” starts out meaning “I want” in English in my head when I use it but slowly transmogrifies into something ever so slightly different, so that when “I” want in Spanish it is a different I and a different wanting and an entirely different mode of wanting.

It was all very well practicing before I left… but when I walk into shops, my mind freezes and all I can remember is “¿Habla inglès?”. After two days, I’m getting a little better.

Still, when I went up to the people at the squat I saw and faltered after a few sentences, it was awkward. I am a product of the imperialist nations, forcing English into the space. The woman I meet, Lia, invites me to the screening of Bowling for Columbine at the anarchist café on Friday… but the film will be in Catalan. She chats with friends and after the first couple of words I lose the thread again and am surrounded by musicality I know to be communication but to which at the same time I am exterior.

Good pop culture kid that I am, it reminds me of The Thirteenth Warrior. Thankfully, I also speak French, which has come in handy more than once, but confuses the situation even more. I am switching between languages, losing the assumptions of accessibility, revealing the sliding interconnections and slipping between the cracks of meaning. Nothing is exact. Precision escapes me.

Translation: Man, it’s hot here. Bliss descended as I stepped off the plane. I was chatting with a clear-eyed ex-Yahoo! exec (go figure) who’d moved here to find himself. He spoke with serenity and calm, looking me directly in the eye, smiling. He wandered off… and I got the train to la Plaza de Catalunya with no mishaps, wandered down to La Rambla, my favourite street from last time I was here, armed with a list of pensiones.

The first one I see is the one I’d idly noted earlier on the list: Hotel Toledana. Given the whole Toledo-obsession, I had to at least check it out. And of course, it just happens to have free Internet access this week because it’s the 90th birthday of the hostel. It’s a little more expensive than I’d hoped, but I get the room all to myself, I’m on the fourth floor overlooking La Rambla (see photo), and given that net access at Heathrow was 6 pounds for an hour, the extra couple of euros will probably pay for itself shortly.

There are people playing pan pipes on the street below. I have no idea who I will be at the end of this journey, but the journey’s half the point, right?