THE REIGN IN SPAIN: How I Spent My Summer VacationJef and I spent the first half of August 2001 in Spain. We were flown there as part of a group of net artists in order to perform at the Festival of Benicassim (FIB). Never heard of FIB? Neither had I, but I've been describing it as the Spanish version of Lollapalooza. This year they had something like 90 bands and 50,000 attendees over the course of three days. It's Spain's biggest music festival.
As I agonized over what to pack for a trip to Spain in the middle of summer, two items seemed mandatory: sunscreen and sunglasses. As it happened, I lost my sunglasses early on and never even opened my sunscreen. Such is the case when you lead a nocturnal existence. (An 'early night' for us over there meant hitting the hay at 5 a.m.) If I ever return to Spain I know what to take next time: cigarettes, rolling papers and matches. I don't smoke, but people were constantly hitting me up for those items. (In my Seattle bus-riding days I used to carry regular, menthol and clove cigarettes. Nowadays I carry dog biscuits. I must have been a Pez dispenser in another life.) Once, backstage at FIB, I was approached by a musician who asked, "Might you have a paper for my thoughts?" Thinking he'd been visited by the muse, I quickly ripped a blank page from my diary so he could jot down the lyrics or poem which surely must be coursing through his brain. Turned out he wanted rolling papers... One item I'm very glad to have packed, however, is a digital camera. Most pix were taken on the fly; I'd whip the camera out, point, shoot, then race to catch up with the herd before they disappeared down a narrow street or were absorbed into a crowd. I've since compiled a few of my photos for the following travelogue.
So read on to discover why I've developed a soft-spot for scaffolding, why gangster rap evokes images of the Spanish countryside and why I learned how to say "sticky" in eight languages. But the best part of all was meeting so many quirky and inspiring people. There is life on the other side of the monitor! | ||
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