A experiencia El Bulli

1. A Reserva

Não fosse a insistência do Pedro Vasconcelos, provavelmente nunca teríamos ido ao El Bulli. Uma das primeiras coisas que fiz quando chegámos a Barcelona foi entregar à minha secretária um recorte do Financial Times exaltando a glória de Ferran Adriá e pedir-lhe para fazer uma reserva nesse restaurante que ostentava o título duvidoso de “melhor do Mundo”. Depois de um contacto por correio electrónico, respondeu que acabara de fechar para o inverno; tínhamos de tentar outra vez em Abril, quando abria a nova temporada. Em Abril, disseram que já não havia vaga naquele ano: mais valia voltar à carga no próximo. Havia lista de espera? Informaram que não: jantavam cinquenta pessoas por noite, e tinham centenas de pedidos. Talvez, se fossemos persistentes, conseguíssemos entrar no lugar de alguma desistência. Nem para o Cônsul Geral de Portugal abriam uma excepção? Pediram muitas desculpas, reconheciam que a situação era realmente embaraçosa, mas não havia nada a fazer.

Perante tantas dificuldades, pus de lado a ideia do El Bulli. Uma ou outra vez, quando alguém falava do assunto, ainda pedia à Myriam para voltar a insistir, mas sem pôr nisso grande empenho. Todos os dias a Catalunha me oferecia mil deleites gastronómicos. Ano após ano, os jornais anunciavam uma chuva de estrelas atribuídas pelo guia Michelin a restaurantes catalães. Já me tinha deliciado no Abac, empanturrado no Celler de Can Roca e descoberto extraordinários bares de tapas em Barcelona. Não faltavam sítios onde se podia comer maravilhosamente e, francamente, estava a ficar cansado de ouvir falar no génio de Ferran Adriá, no convite que tinha recebido para se exibir na Documenta de Kassel, nos utensílios de cozinha que desenvolvera, e nas suas famosas inovações, a esferificação da azeitona, os molhos de espuma, a cozinha molecular. Que grande diferença poderia existir entre dois restaurantes com o mesmo numero de estrelas, ou mesmo entre um com duas e outro com três?

Mas o Pedro não desarmava. De modo que, ao iniciar o ultimo ano em Barcelona, resolvi fazer uma derradeira tentativa, mais por descargo de consciência do que por verdadeira convicção. Claramente, necessitava tomar o assunto em mãos. Por intermédia pessoa nunca lá chegaria. De modo que um dia de Setembro, no meio de outros afazeres, escrevi o seguinte correio electrónico para o chefe das reservas do El Bulli, que apesar de dizer que não a todos os pedidos, nunca deixava de lhes responder:

“Estimado Señor D. Luís Garcia

Hace três años el dia 1 de Octubre que empecé mis funciones como Cónsul General de Portugal en Barcelona. Una de las primeras cosas que intenté cuando llegué aqui fue hacer una reserva para comer en vuestro restaurante. No lo he logrado hasta ahora a pesar de las múltiplas veces que lo he pedido. Si hoy le escribo personalmente sobre este tema es que, a la verdad, ya me estoy quedando desesperado. Mi comisión esta a punto de terminar y me veo en riesgo de haber pasado por aqui sin conocer vuestro restaurante.

Al principio se trataba solamente de una cuestión de placer y de curiosidad. Ahora se ha convertido en una cuestión de prestigio y en una medida muy concreta del éxito de mi misión en Barcelona. Es que resulta muy difícil explicar a todos los portugueses que hacen cola para comer en vuestro restaurante y que, legitimamente, piensan que su amistad con el Cónsul les va a abrir la puerta de esa Meca, que no solamente no les puedo ayudar como que yo mismo, con toda la influencia que un Cônsul debe tener, no he podido forzar las puertas de El Bulli.

Por eso me atrevo a apelar a su buena voluntad y, en nombre de la secular amistad entre nuestros pueblos, a pedirle que abra un hueco para que este humilde servidor de Portugal pueda al menor irse de Barcelona sin tener de confesar, avergonzadamente, que de El Bulli solo ha oído hablar.

Con un saludo muy cordial, etc...”

Uma semana depois recebi a seguinte resposta:

Apreciado Señor

Le comprendo y creame que nos sentimos absolutamente impotentes delante de esta situación ya que nuestra limitada capacidade por una temporada se ve superada año trás año desde el primer momento y son incontables los temas que se acumulan pendientes de solución.

Esta angustiada confissão nada augurava de bom, mas a porta entreabria-se no segundo parágrafo:

Lo tendremos en cuenta para si conseguimos encajar una ópcion para usted pero dependemos de como vayan evolucionando las confirmaciones de todas las reservas ya fijadas

Percebi que a invocação da razão de Estado tinha abalado o muro impenetrável que se interpunha entre mim e El Bulli. Talvez agora com mais uns quantos empurrões conseguisse explorar a pequena brecha aberta pela artilharia pesada do discurso diplomático. Apesar de tudo, foi grande a surpresa quando algumas semanas depois, após novas insistências, recebi finalmente a confirmação: mesa para quatro pessoas, dia 16 de Dezembro às oito horas em ponto.

De manhã, a Clara e o Pedro chegaram de Lisboa. As quatro da tarde, partimos de Barcelona, sem almoçar. Quando chegamos a Figueres, a ultima cidade antes da fronteira francesa, já caía a noite. Virámos à direita em direcção à Costa Brava. Perdemos uma hora a passear na fantasmal Cadaqués, território de Salvador Dali e Marcel Duchamp. As sete, seguimos finalmente para Roses e de lá, por uma estrada sinuosa ladeada de pinheiros até à Cala Montjoi. Na impaciência da chegada, parecia que não tinham fim as curvas e contracurvas. À nossa direita, a noite escura deixava adivinhar o Mediterrâneo. Íamos como em direcção à casa da bruxas, lá perdida nos confins, onde se confeccionavam poções mágicas à beira mar, sem saber bem o que nos esperava.

2. O banquete

Comer no El Bulli é uma experiência teatral tanto como gastronómica. O jantar é concebido como um espectáculo, em que apenas somos chamados a participar para provar o que nos põem à frente. Não há sequer menu – ao confirmar a reserva, o cliente deve apenas indicar se tem alguma restrição, devido a qualquer alergia ou outro motivo. (A nossa era extensa, pois a Manel e a Clara são duas alergias vivas: mas para tudo tinham alternativa). A única coisa que se escolhe são os vinhos, mas mesmo nesse caso é preferível entregar o assunto nas mãos do “sommelier”, como infelizmente pude comprovar.

Começámos por uma visita à cozinha, ocasião para cumprimentar e tirar uma fotografia com Ferran Adriá. É um lugar de bulício ordenado, obviamente imaculada, onde dezenas de cozinheiros e ajudantes se debruçam sobre pequenos pratos que compõem como haikus. Ao lado, a sala de jantar está decorada num género rústico, com um chão de ladrilho preto e branco, amplas janelas debruçadas sobre o mar, e confortáveis cadeirões forrados a veludo vermelho. Nada de mobiliário de design e iluminação estudada, nem brocados e espelhos dourados como em certos restaurantes de luxo em França. O cliente deve sentir-se à vontade para poder concentrar toda a atenção nos manjares.

Apenas nos deram tempo para respirar antes de se iniciar o desfile. Primeiro veio o “sommelier”, que o Pedro logo identificou como o “nariz de ouro” de 2006, depositar na mesa um pesado volume com a carta dos vinhos. Recomendou uma cava para acompanhar as entradas frias. Concerteza, venha a cava. Portugueses que somos, fomos imediatamente ver que vinhos portugueses estavam: apenas uma página com oito Douros e um único Dão. Dick Niepoort, Quinta do Crasto e um Quinta do Vale Meão 2000. Depois de folhear brevemente as páginas e páginas dedicadas à Espanha, à França, à Itália, repletas de nomes que desconhecia, resolvi, num assomo de patriotismo, pedir o Vale Meão, um vinho delicioso, com um imenso bouquet e um aroma intenso de frutos vermelhos. O sommelier, bom diplomata, não contestou a escolha mas recomendou que começássemos por um branco: “que tal um Borgonha, por exemplo este Meursault 2001, que está óptimo”. Não hesitei: a primeira experiência transcendente que tive com vinhos fora precisamente com um inolvidável Meursault com um impressionante sabor a noz servido pelo Joaquim Brandão em Bruxelas em 1996.

Entretanto, já se iniciara o serviço. Sem nos dar tempo para respirar, prato após prato aterrava na nossa mesa, precedido de uma breve explicação e de uma sumária instrução: pega por esta ponta, trinca primeiro aqui e acaba ali. Primeiro cheira este copo, depois vai este bocadinho e por fim aquele. A primeira parte consistia em aperitivos frios acompanhados com cava. Depois da redução de “mojito”, da flor de ibisco a que era necessário sorver o suco; dos amendoins reconstruídos, da inevitável azeitona esferificada que explode na boca, da lamela de “parmigiano”, do sorbet de limão para limpar a boca, para comer com as mãos, chegou uma impressionante bola oca de gelado de Gorgonzola com noz moscada, aberta com uma colherada no topo como se faz para o “oeuf a la coque”; já estávamos rendidos, mas sem imaginar o seu seguiria. Em seguida vieram as bolachinhas de sésamo; as cerejas “umboshi”; o rebuçado de chá verde; o bolo de coco espumoso; um sensacional prato de caril de lentilhas frio (seriam realmente lentilhas?) — por esta altura já tínhamos passado para o inebriante Meursault. Depois, um meloso tartar de tétano com ostras; o camarãozinho de três sabores; um fabuloso prato de pistachios com gelado de trufa; uma demonstração das possibilidades do feijão de soja, em todas as suas variantes, puro virtuosismo gastronómico; um sensacional consomé de pombo, acompanhado por uma bolacha croquante em forma de flor coberta de cacau e recheada de um levíssimo paté, aqui se bem me lembro já acompanhado pelo Vale Meão; o carpaccio de folhas de rosa; uma etérea sandwiche de algodão de açúcar com maçãs e nozes; um excepcional caldo de galinha com gengibre onde boiava uma fina fatia de abóbora a fazer as vezes de barbatana de tubarão; o pombo com molho de tangerinas; a “gelée” de lebre; e para terminar, uma sucessão de sobremesas impossível de reconstituir dado o adiantado da hora, mas onde mesmo assim destaco a bola de gelo oca com folhas de chá verde e açúcar caramelizado e a impressionante caixa de chocolates que termina o jantar numa nota de humor sardónico.

Ao todo foram 39 pratos que nos mantiveram alertas e ocupados das oito da noite às duas da manhã. Sem pão, sem queijo, sem carne ou peixe que se vissem. Aliás, sem transição clara entre salgados e doces, sem uma noção de Ocidente ou Oriente e com um uso muito comedido da faca e do garfo: uma pura sucessão de surpresas. Muito acima, muito à frente, mas também muito ao lado do usual. Cada prato com uma esmerada apresentação, uma perfeita consistência, um sábio equilíbrio de sabores e de texturas. No final, já exausto e aturdido, ainda consegui porém a lucidez de concordar com o sommelier que o Quinta de Vale Meão tinha sido um erro. Demasiado corpo, demasiado álcool. Pode não ser patriótico e é talvez pretensioso, mas realmente estas artes pediam um grande Borgonha.

3. O Day After

Chegámos a Barcelona às quatro da manhã, conduzidos pela Manel, que se abstivera de beber, ainda a tempo de chamar um táxi para daí a duas horas levar a Clara e o Pedro ao aeroporto. No dia seguinte era dia de trabalho: eu próprio tinha uma reunião de manhã. Com quatro horas de sono acordei apenas ligeiramente tonto. Nem sombra de ressaca ou indigestão. Resolvi escrever este texto, para nunca mais me esquecer. Dos 39 pratos, nem todos ficam na memória; para reconstruir o menu, tive de recorrer a documentação. O que fica é uma sensação global de deslumbramento e euforia. Desde que fomos ao El Bulli, continuo a ter fome mas já não tenho vontade de comer. A Manel já não quer cozinhar. Dizer que o El Bulli é um restaurante de três estrelas no guia Michelin não lhe faz justiça. Merecia dez. O melhor restaurante do mundo? Não há razão para duvidar. Aquela noite lembrou uma coisa que é fácil esquecer: a grande distância que existe entre o extraordinário e o simplesmente muito bom. Já pedimos nova reserva para a temporada de verão.

Two major events occurred in the history of Spain in 1492: the discovery of America and the conquest of Granada. At the time, the fall of the last moorish kingdom in the Iberian peninsula was by far the most important one. Granada was the capital of a sophisticated, tolerant, languid and rich court. When the Alhambra finally fell, after a twenty year war, the Catholic Kings were in a hurry to make their imprint on the city, turning it quickly into a Christian outpost. A visit to Granada makes clear the incredible efforts made by Spain, then and in the following centuries, to bestow on the city a grandiose architectural patrimony. But no church, and no palace, not even the great Renaissance residence built by Charles V in the Alhambra, can rival in charm and delicacy the Nazari dynasty's palaces.

Back to The Beatles

The Beatles are back with a new remastered edition of their complete opus. For once, this is no mere gimmick of the recording industry. The Beatles were studio wizards. In this new edition, the songs sound as fresh as ever but they are now revealed in their full complexity. Tracks that laid buried in the old recordings are now brought to the fore. Every musical line is sharply delineated, and wonderfully balanced. Some songs sound as good as new. This is pop music made to last, deceptively simple, seemingly effortless but, in fact, incredibly sophisticated.

Lisbeth Salander

I met Lisbeth Salander thanks to one of Vargas Llosa's monthly articles in El País. I had, of course, already seen her face staring at me from numerous book covers in different languages as the "girl this" and "the girl that" but, not being usually attracted to best sellers, had decided to give the Millenium trilogy a wide berth. Vargas Llosa's enthusiasm made me curious and, on a weekend abroad, I ventured to buy one of these airport paperbacks good for reading in the subway, as a cautious investment. Well, I am now midway through the second volume, totally hooked and taking just a brief interval to write about it. Like millions before me, I found that this is one of these books that you want to come home to and that you continue reading in the mechanical escalator after the morning train ride is over. Is it great literature or just another page turner? Probably somewhere in between ("it reads itself", said a friend of mine) but the web of intrigue woven by Stieg Larrson with the girl detective, the investigative journalist, corrupt financiers, sexual abuse, computer wizardry, murder mysteries and swedish contemporary mores is irresistible. Just try it...

Pierre Boulez

Quite apart from his merits as composer, of which I know nothing, Pierre Boulez is the best conductor of XXth century music there has ever been. His foremost virtue in approaching these pieces is clarity. It is as if he alone, with his razor sharp mind and keen musical ear, really understood how they should be played. I was lucky to see him conduct the composers of the Viennese school, back in 1977, when he was at the New York Philarmonic, and I will never forget the revelation: the spaciousness, the precision, the chromatic beauty which really made these pieces come alive. Listen here to his interpretation of the Five Orchestral Pieces, by Anton Webern.

The Farewell

Mahler composed the song cycle "Songs of the Earth" in 1908. It is one of his last completed works and a hauntingly beautiful one, even for someone like me who is not really into Mahler. You can listen to the story and the song, performed by Pierre Boulez, the Vienna Philarmonic, Violeta Urmana and Michael Schade here.

Mapping Contemporary Art

In the old days, we had the vanguard. Then came the vanguards. Then the art scene exploded and fragments flew in all directions. This is called contemporary art. The distinctive thing about contemporary art is that everything is allowed. Means - drawing, painting, photography, video, installations, sculptures - and styles. What follows is a stupid attempt to identify certain categories, after breezing through the Venice Biennale and associated shows in one hectic weekend.

Flashy art for millionaires: this is mostly what you see at Palazzio Grassi, where the french magnate Bernard Pinault houses his collection. An example would be the stuff produced by Takashi Murakami. There are of course exceptions, also to be found there. For example, Cindy Sherman, Richard Prince, the little collages by Barbara Kruger

The big collages of junk and mementoes: this falls under the category of installation. Assemble a lot of apparently unrelated stuff and put it together in some kind of jarring order as far removed from any sense of beauty as you can get. An artist friend says this is a reaction against the perfect pictures you can get with photoshop.

Documentation art: this is the kind of thing heavily favored by a museum like MACBA. Photos and photocopies, "objets trouvés" in the mass media, all carefully put together to make sociological points.

Hostile art: as far out as you can get, often highly formalistic

In the midst of all this, you have of course the painters (fewer and fewer, it seems) the photographers (out of fashion this year) the video artists (as the technology improves, they keep getting better) and the sculptors (which never go out of fashion).

So here is a list of some of the stuff I liked: Lygia Pape, Hans Peter Feldmann, Michelangelo Pistolleto, Gonkar Gyatso, Cildo Meireles, Huang Yong Ping, Gordon Matta-Clark, Pavel Pepperstein. And pavilions: Australia and Finland I particularly remember.

Venice Biennale Weekend

Inglorious Bastards

Has Quentin Tarantino succumbed to infantilism? Inglorious Bastards plays out like the fantasy of a twelve year old. Hitler and the lot are certainly ripe for a spoof and Tarantino's film provides some harmless innocent clean fun. His cartoonish take on World War II has some odd flashes of brilliance - the scenes with the British agent seem to me the best - but as the film progresses to its Godawful climax, it elicits no more than an indulgent smile of mild disbelief.

The AVE from Madrid to Barcelona II

The AVE from Madrid to Barcelona

The Witches of Eastwick

John Updike: his prodigious facility and output raised doubts in my mind. A great writer, no question about it, with unparelleled command of the English language, as every casual reader of the New Yorker would know. But was he a great novelist, like Bellow or Roth? Prompted by Martin Amis, I tried. The first thing that struck me was his comic gift. Then, his incredible ear for dialogue: the telephone gossip between the three witches, the appearance of Darryl Van Horne (remember Jack Nicholson in the movie?): you are there. Little by little, other layers appear: the cruelty, but at the same time the vast knowingness. With infinite subtlety, he conveys every shade of meaning about relations between men and women, their yearnings, loves, rivalries. There is a familiarity with the mysteries of the universe, the ebb and flow of life. Updike was Piscis; he has the wisdom and the distance of the sign. His light touch does not make him any less profound than others more prone to display their intellectual bagage and their angst. How come this man never had the Nobel prize? It would have been richly deserved.

Lolita

Taking advantage of the summer lull, I am dutifully reading Lolita, prompted by Martin Amis' enthusiasm, by Richard Prince's collection of first editions in numerous covers and translations, by the lure of a twentieth century classic. No doubt, Nabokov is a virtuoso: "Lo.Lee.Ta: the tip of the tongue taking a trip of three steps down the palate to tap, at three, on the teeth". Try it out: it is exact, precise like the best parts of his belaboured prose. But I must confess mixed feelings. Like all virtuosos, Nabokov finds it hard no to show off his mastery. To catch the translucent diamonds, one has to cut through much dead wood, climb over alliterations, swim past elaborate descriptions, master clever puns, decipher erudite allusions and puzzle over word games. And the humour? Yes, the text is suffused with it, but I haven't enjoyed yet one single laughing out loud moment. The best? The alluring nymphet herself, with her slang, her languorous poses, her sharp repartie, her mixture of kwowingness and naiveté.

Leonard Cohen live in Lisbon

Masterful, superb... it's easy to run out of superlatives to describe Leonard Cohen's concert yesterday at Pavilhão Atlântico. For close to three hours, his catalogue of classic songs was delivered with deep subdued feeling and insuperable precision.  The band was perfect - is there any other word? - and Cohen himself, his voice intact, his body lean, presided over the show with majestic serenity like the high priest of song he is.  Time flied, the audience roared and a beatific smile of elation and gratitude came over me.

Globalization

In the 1930's, two Swedish economists formulated a simple law of economics which goes a long way towards explaining some of the dynamics of globalization. The Hecksher Ohlin theorem states that a country will tend  to specialize  in sectors which use the factor of production it possesses in relative abundance. Thus, countries with abundant labour, like China or India, will tend to produce labour intensive goods whilst countries rich in capital, like the US or Germany, will tend to specialize in capital intensive goods. This apparently self evident law has a corollary: as world trade expands and the global economy becomes increasingly integrated, the cost of these two factors of production will tend towards equality across countries. Thus, the cost of labour will tend to fall where it is high, like in Europe, whereas the remuneration of capital will tend to rise, because capital is scarce in less developed countries with high demographic growth rates. As the cost of the factors of production become more similar across countries, so do their social structures. Hence the rise of inequalities in the developed world, where salaries are increasingly compressed - just ask any regular "mileurista" - and an increasingly smaller part of the population - those who have capital - get richer and richer. If you want to go more in depth into this, read the work of the brilliant French social scientist, Emmanuel Todd. If not, just stay with Leonard Cohen's age old wisdom: "the poor stay poor and the rich get richer ... as everybody knows".

A country made for walking

From pictures and novels, everybody has in mind a familiar image of the english countryside: lush greens, rolling hills, white cliffs, a strong sea wind, boys dressed in white playing cricket, horseriding in country lanes, elaborate picnics, classic convertibles in narrow country roads with old gentlemen and young ladies. Well, after a recent weekend in Sussex and Kent, I can confirm nothing has changed. Globalization is still kept at bay in these counties. Life remains much as it was and as it should be. 

Victor Pimstein

Blue is the dominant colour in Victor Pimstein's new show at Joan Pratts, in Barcelona. The line in the horizon, abstracted landscapes, chinese ceramics are distilled into pure evocative images  at once familiar and exotic. We are in a realm of rarefied imagery. The gloss of the painted image, the steady glow and perfect finish of these works only  add to their mystery. 

Celebrity culture

Yesterday, 45 000 people went to Real Madrid's stadium to greet Kaka, the new brasilian star acquired by the club for 60 million euros. They cheered wildly the short speech by the club's president, the real estate magnate Florentino Perez, and the even shorter speech by the star, who appeared fully clad in white, like an angel, with Real's trademark equipment. Real Madrid, who is expecting even more fans to greet Cristiano Ronaldo, who was purchased for 92 million euros, feels sure that these are great investments, not because of the goals they are expected to score but because of the financial returns in publicity and merchandising. This is celebrity culture gone awry. Politicians are hounded by the press and seen as little better than criminals; except in Italy, if they have entertainment value like Berlusconi. Now that ideals have vacated the realm of politics, they seem to be fully invested in football. Great players are no longer merely stars, they are heroes. 

Pina Bausch in memoriam

She was a very great artist. Like Wagner, she invented a new form of total art, turning ballet into a metaphysical and narrative genre. I had often heard great things about Pina Bausch but nothing prepared me for the overwhelming beauty and emotion of Agua, the first show of hers that I saw (CCB, Lisbon 2003). Since that first experience, never ever did I miss an opportunity to catch up on all her works that I had criminally overlooked in the years before. I managed to see Cravos and Ten Chi (Teatro de São Luiz, Lisboa 2005) , the great Cafe Muller — with herself performing — and The Rite of Spring, (Liceo, Barcelona 2008). I wish I had seen all of them.

The artist as icon

And now for something completely different. Taschen has just published a fabulous book retracing the entire career of Jeff Koons. It is impossible to look at his work without smiling. Koons himself is always smiling, as if inviting the viewer to share in the enjoyment of his work. It's schmaltzy, crunchy, shiny and glossy. His pieces are instant, cheerful, icons of popular culture. With the exception of the "Made in Heaven" series, which seem strangely literal, self indulgent and cold and whose shock value comes more from its sheer bad taste than from its explicit sexual content, Koons manages to combine wit, warmth, technical perfection and a complex simplicity in his multiple cross references to consumer culture, pop art, infantile imagery and sexual tease.  

The painter as hero

Julian Schnabel is a man of bold gestures. He is grand, immodest and generous. He built himself a palazzo on the Hudson river, when he decided to change medium he bypassed video and went directly to commercial filmmaking and, meanwhile, made a name for himself as a decorator, eschewing modern design for rich colours and deep textures. He is also squarely out of fashion. No respectable museum will touch his work. Is this perhaps unfair? The other day I stumbled upon a book published by Skira retracing his career and, much to my surprise, felt a strong compulsion to buy it. All of a sudden, his famous broken crockery paintings, which had always seemed to me slightly repellent, appeared full of energy and depth. His newer material, bold strokes of paint on found images, seemed beautiful and poetic. It seemed quite refreshing to find art that is openly emotional done by a painterly painter, as opposed to the dessicated, intellectual pieces  that fill so many museums and galleries these days... 

Museum night at MACBA

Performance art at the chapel: german/spanish rock by Monsters and Miracles. Kids, skaters and immigrants at the MACBA plaza. Art objects (Matt Mulligan, Rita McBride) and Manel and Victor having a good time inside the museum. The museum director chatting at the door. End

Dylan at 68

Bob Dylan's new album, "Together Through Life", may be even better than his last ones, which all in all were amazingly good for a rock star who is now 68 years old.  The first thing to say about this record is that it sounds great, thanks to an inspired band which includes an accordionist and a trumpet player. The music is not infused with nostalgia... It is just straight rhythm n' blues, and it rocks. The songs are good too, maybe even great, only time will tell. Dylan still sounds genuine, not like a caricature of himself. To justify the outrageous price of the CD, it comes with a DVD with the demo track of Blowing in the Wind, recorded in 1962 - Bob Dylan looks like he is barely out of school but already sounds like a wise old man -  and an extra CD of the radio program he now hosts, The Theme Time Radio Hour. Here we have Bob Dylan as the literate historian and witty connoisseur of american popular music. I say: let him record more records, but also let him write more books. I read Chronicles I when it came out and I have been waiting impatiently for the next installment of his autobiography. A sacred monster, still alive and kicking. 

Tapas in Barcelona

Mini squids "en su tinta", "arroz negro", peppers "padrone" with lots of sea salt, "pan con tomate", a  bewildering variety of mushrooms, "esqueixada" of vegetables, smelly cheeses from the Pyrenees, "jamon de bellota", naturally, tuna every which way, plus the odd plate of lentils, and the fried artichokes, and not to forget "la tortilla" (called "truita" in catalan), and the "patatas bravas" and all sorts of "pescaditos" - with a dry white wine from the Penedes and, to top it off, some salty chocolate or a "crema catalana" and, feeling lightheaded, you are off to a delightful shopping afternoon on Paseo de Gracia or Rambla de Catalunya. Names and addresses for the best tapas in Barcelona provided on request.

Video art

Minimum-Maximum, the double DVD recording of Kraftwerk's world tour in 2004 is a perfect piece of video art. The stunning graphics accompanying the songs look even better on video than live (I saw the show at the Coliseu dos Recreios, in Lisbon). Kraftwerk always aimed for perfection. No loose ends, no accidents, no superfluous moves. Their hieratic show runs through their entire career, from Autobahn to Tour de France, with a perfect blend of wit and majesty. The visual counterpoint brings to life all their classic songs - from Man Machine to Elektro Kardiogramm. Hypnotic.

Carlos Kleiber

Some conductors leave their personal imprint on whatever they touch. Karajan is always Karajan, whether playing Mozart, Beethoven or Stravinsky. There is always a certain sense of solemnity - of  depth and weight. The only time I saw him conduct - the Berlin Philarmonic - I was struck by the way the bows of the violin section rose and fell exactly in unison. The orchestra behaved like an army, moving inexorably in perfect sync. Another conductor with an inimitable style was Furtwangler. But he was just the opposite of Karajan. For him music was all poetry and lyricism, nuance and fantasy. Carlos Kleiber belongs to a different school. When he conducts he seems to get inside the score. The music sounds as if it was meant to sound exactly the way he plays it. In his hand, everything becomes  fresh and spontaneous. There never is an undue emphasis, all the parts are phrased exactly right, everything becomes clear, sparkling, sharply delineated.  

Isaac Bashevis Singer

Almost inadvertently, I plunged into another novel by Isaac Bashevis Singer - "The Manor and The Estate". Beware if you pick up one of his books. Singer has that rarest of gifts in a novelist - the ability to hook you from the very first sentence. "After the unsuccessful rebellion of 1863, many Polish noblemen were hanged; others - Count Wladislaw Jampolski among them - were banished to Siberia. The Czar's soldiers led the Count in chains through the streets of Jampol, the town which bore his name." This is how "The Manor and The Estate" begins. Immediately, we are in the thick of it. Singer wastes no words. His narrative is fast paced, but he is capable, in one or two simple brushstrokes, to describe action, character and atmosphere. The novel is set in the vanished world of the Hasidim in pre-WWII Europe. It deals with Singer's familiar concerns: jews and gentiles, orthodoxy and heresy, poverty and money and always men and women and their complicated love affairs. Narrow concerns, provincial settings? In Singer's hands, stories of universal interest, gripping, moving, tellling and wise.

Cildo Meireles

I saw a great show at Macba by Brasilian artist Cildo Meireles. Landscapes, open cages, small objects conjure a vastly evocative personal universe. Meireles gives installations a good name. Here is a photo of one his great pieces, a tower of Babel made of radios. But the picture does not by any means convey the majesty of the sculpture, its towering presence in a dark room, with blinking lights and dissonant symphony of sound.

Kraftwerk

There is a new DVD with a fascinating documentary about the birth of german electronic pop music, called "Kraftwerk and the Electronic Revolution". It shows how in different german cities, beginning in the late 60's, weird experiments conducted under the influence of Stockhausen and psychedelic drugs coalesced into a cluster of great bands, some of which well known, like Can or Tangerine Dream, others much less so, like Ash Ra Tempel. It then shows how Kraftwerk, working in Dusseldorf, fitted or did not fit into that scene and how they progressively hit upon their style, creating some of the most sumptuous pop music ever recorded. And finally it shows the tremendous influence they had, first of all on David Bowie who, in 1976, went to Berlin with Brian Eno to record their great masterpiece, "Low", and then on disco, british electronic pop and techno. "From station to station to Dusseldorf city, meet Iggy Pop and David Bowie" sings Ralf Florian in Trans Europe Express. The record came out in 1977, when punk rock was raging. In New York City, cool black kids in sneakers were the first to take it up. I remember hearing Trans Europe Express for the first time in Central Park throbbing out of a ghetto blaster. Check out here Showroom Dummies  from that famed masterpiece album.

Cool Milan

Milan feels cool and, at the same time, oddly menacing. The massive presence of the Sforza castle in the middle of the city hints at sinister scenes within walls. The typical Italian swagger - tight pants, shiny sneakers, the shirt hanging out of the mauve sweater, overdone sunglasses - makes one feel about to be swindled. When the lights go out at night, the city has dark corners suddenly illuminated by speeding sports cars. If you ask someone a question in the street you are likely to get a brusque answer, or no answer at all. You are reminded of the decadent charms of Visconti and the perverse brilliancy of Pasolini. 

Parma

Leafy boulevards with handsome villas, wide green parks, a few choice medieval monuments, XIXth century palaces, a statue here and there, the opera house, old bookshops, strolling families with ice cream cones... and lots of Parmegianno...Parma is a bourgeois dream, an oasis of "bien être", the rare urban exception to the sprawling megalopolis which defines the XXIst century.

Padua

Padua looks disjointed. It was heavily bombed both in the first and the second World War, when it had the bad luck of falling within the Republic of Salo. But it boasts the marvellous Cappelli delli Scrovegni, decorated with frescoes by Giotto, and the Basilica of St Anthony,the saint who happened to be born in Lisbon in 1195 (apparently he was a Leo) under the name Fernando Martins de Bulhões. In the photo, a view of the Basilica with the famous statue by Donatello in front, the first bronze equestrian statue to be cast after the Roman period.

Basilica of San Marcus - Venice

In Venice, I learned that the Basilica of San Marcus is one thousand years old. It is covered in golden mosaics. The original ones were looted from Constantinople during the IVth Crusade, in the first decade of the XIIIth century. This photo shows the only mosaic panel  from that period still extant on the Basilica's facade. In the Academia, I saw the famous painting by Gentile Bellini depicting a solemn procession in Saint Marks square in which all the original mosaic panels are shown. This one is clearly visible.

Verona

Verona placida romana est.

The end of history

The single most influential book written about the post Cold War era was "The End of History and the Last Man", by Francis Fukuyama, a former US diplomat turned scholar who became famous practically overnight on the strength of this provocative title. Countless books, articles and pamphlets were written mocking, denouncing and seeking to disprove Fukuyama's thesis, many of them by people who had never read him and thoroughly misunderstood him. The last such attempt, by noted pundit Robert Kagan -  who also reached a kind of fame with his "Paradise and Power", positing that Europeans are from Venus while Americans are from Mars -  is called, significantly, "The Return of History and the End of Dreams". Kagan argues that a new era of great power politics is upon us and that the organizing principle of this new era is not the "clash of civilizations" - another book title which gained great currency as an unfortunate slogan in the last 10 years  - but the struggle between liberal democracy and autocracy. History is back in a most traditional guise: just like in the good old days of the XIXth century but now played out in a global scenario. But, even if this were true, does it really disprove Fukuyama's thesis? Fukuyama never meant that history had ended in the sense that all conflict had or would end. He merely argued that, with the collapse of communism, we had reached the end of ideological evolution, in the Hegelian sense. Liberal democracy had triumphed. There was no ideological alternative to it and none would appear. Now, does anyone really believe that autocracy, as practiced today, mostly in Russia or in China, offers any kind of ideological alternative to democracy? Autocracy can be a very efficient and practical method of government, but I very much doubt that it offers any kind of serious ideological competition to liberal democracy, as communism did in its heyday. Fukuyama's totem still stands.

Homage to Stefan Zweig

The books by Stefan Zweig that were sleeping soundly in the shelves of our mothers and grandmother's libraries have now come back to life. And they truly are masterpieces, which fully justify the enormous fame and prestige that Zweig enjoyed in his lifetime. His memoir about Vienna, "World of Yesterday" is the single most evocative book about the fading days of the Habsburg empire that I have ever read. His historical biographies (Marie Antoinette, Mary Queen Scots, Erasmus, Magellan, Fouché) are models of concision and psychological insight, told with a keen sense of drama and cinematographic detail. Equally worthwhile are his studies of great literary masters (Balzac, Dostoievsky, Tolstoy, Nietzche, Holderlin, to cite but a few of those he applied himself to present).  Zweig was in some respects a summation of what was best about the European civilization that ended with the two World Wars: the devotion to high culture, the cosmopolitan spirit, the sense of decency and refinement. He committed suicide in Brasil, together with his second wife Lotte, in February 1942, when the carnival was roaring in the streets.

Charisma

Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Ottis Redding, The Who... Forty years later, they jump at you from the screen, in their youthful splendour, in the documentary by P.E. Pennebaker which I just watched for the first time about the Monterey Pop festival. In June 1967, this festival, with the impeccable sound system, neat rows of chairs,  friendly cops and thousands of innocent faces in all their psychedelic bloom was said to have launched the Summer of Love: there they were, the Mammas and the Papas, Simon and Garfunkel and the Jefferson Airplane singing their sweet tunes, full of American innocence and good will. But alongside, in sharp contrast,  there was already a deep rumble of agression: Pete Townsend smashing his guitar, and Hendrix setting his on fire, over a thunderous menacing version of Wild Thing, after a little ejaculatory performance with the instrument. And Janis Joplin, above all, singing the blues with an impersonation of despair which would soon become all too real. From Monterey to Altamont, only two years elapsed, but a what a difference did they make.

The Blue Danube

While Germany brooded, Austria danced. In the gilded ballrooms of Vienna, smart officers in uniform made white clad young women spin, swirl and swoon to the tunes of the Strauss brothers. All the refined charm, jollity and gallantry of the Habsburg empire are contained in the Viennese waltz. Nietzche said: (I will quote the French translation) "Mais cette musique me semble parfaite. Elle s'avance, légère, souple, polie. Elle est aimable, elle ne transpire pas. 'Ce qui est bon est léger. Tout ce qui est divin marche d'un pied délicat': premier principe de mon esthétique". He was famously talking about Bizet. But aren't these words equally suited to Johan Strauss?

Antonio Lobo Antunes

Word by word, sentence by sentence, António Lobo Antunes is a great writer. He catches like no one else the flavour of the spoken word, his prose is full of gripping metaphors, he can be wonderfully funny and sardonic. And yet, I doubt whether he is great novelist. His novels lack structure and plot, the story line is weak and the unfortunate result is the reader's boredom. He seems to me a self-indulgent writer, who loses himself in the voluptuousness of style. His characters move in a haze of unbridled stream of consciousness from which an action rarely emerges. Although his vision of Portugal can be ferocious, his characters often seem oddly sentimental, especially when they are full of despair. It seems as if this scion of the "haute bourgeoisie" is endlessly fascinated by the "petite bourgeoisie". His whole novelistic world is made of bitterness and frustration, his characters are always constrained by a hostile, morose and petty social reality.  Is Portugal really like this?

Tristan and Isolde

My friend João Pedro Garcia, who is a devout opera buff and spends his weekends travelling the world to catch the very best performances, invited me and my wife, as a wedding present, to join him in Milan for Tristan and Isolde, with Daniel Barenboim in the podium and "mise en scène" by Patrice Chéreau. I, who like to spend my weekends at home, had often wondered how he could withstand the strain of so much travelling after a hard workweek. Now I think I understand a little better. Opera at this level is consoling, overwhelming, elating - I am short of adverbs for describing the deep emotional and artistic satisfaction I took in this show. For hours, I sat entranced, watching the slow build up of each act to its powerful climax, sometimes moved to tears by the drama. Everything fell together, the music and the action fused in a seamless whole, just as Wagner had intended it. This is, indeed, the only way to enjoy Wagner: in the theater. And as I left La Scala, it occurred to me that never since the Greeks invented the tragedy had anything been created for the stage  with the same capacity to move an audience as a Wagner opera.