Le maudit Mo D.

dali-wood and el pooping man

Espana: land of pork. If you don't like pork or aren't interested in the many configurations that pork may be served, then don't visit Spain. Spain is the land of many hams. And that said, while there is a great variety of ham, there isn't a great variety of other foods. Like the lamester American I am, I was thinking fondly of burritos today. When it is not official Spanish mealtime, the only food you can get is...a ham sandwich. :( It might be the best ham sandwich you'll ever eat, but it's still a...ham sandwich.

No me gusta jamon. But I've still been eating it.

All this cured meat has really been affecting my potty habits, which leads me into one of the greatest cultural phenoms of Catalunya, which is the presence of El Caganer during Christmas!!! Christmastime is poop time, a time when the Catalan people give back to the earth what they take from it. They honor the body's natural processes by placing the little squatting poop man, El Caganer (which really does mean "pooping man") in the Nativity scene. This time of year, little statues of poop man (called caganers) are sold at the Christmas bazaar on the Cathedral grounds. In Barcelona, church and poop are not mutually exclusive.

Today Bob and I took the train two hours north to the town of Figueres to visit the Museu Dali. Salvador Dali is one of my Harry's homeboys, having contributed to Harry's surrealism collections. I actually did more work on the papers of Paul Eluard, the French writer who Dali famously cuckolded. Pauvre Paul. Gala dumped him and stayed with Sal until she died and he did many paintings of her in various states of undress.

The Dali Museum is definitely on my list of favorites. The museum guide gives you a map but the map tells you that it is against Dali's wishes for you to follow the map. None of the works are described, because Dali wanted you to make up your own damn mind about art. I heart surrealism. I saw a bird with human legs and feet (wearing striped socks and loafers, too), the Raining Cadillac, a stereogram of Alice Cooper (!), the famous melting clocks, a bed shaped like a fish, Dali's "soft self-portrait with grilled bacon" (a Bob fave) and several sculptures that made provocative use of carpet tacks.

I think I love Spanish waiters. Our waiter last night was semi-proficient in English but was occasionally scornful of us and it showed on his face. I asked him if I could take his picture and he said si. Photo of waiter forthcoming.

Posted by Zerd at December 21, 2007 01:09 PM