Looking for Duende

Duende is not a delicate body part. Duende is not some strange puncuation. Duende is a word that basically means real, deep, profound, from the heart. It's the same emotional quality that you can find in the Blues or Fado or Mourna. It's sort of hard to describe what it is. It's just obvious when it's missing. Blind Willie Johnson, yep. Cheap Trick, no.

So I just got back from a interesting night. I started out the evening with the intention of meeting up with a friend and seeing some real deal flamenco. It was to be held at a strange park in one of the most ethnically diverse parts of the city. The park used to be a hideous dirt pit conveniently left that way by speculators and the city after they knocked down a couple of buildings that had been full of families. The vecinos got together and said screw it, it’s ours and then started planting trees and grass and putting in benches. What was the city going to do? Start tearing up the shrubbery? Anyway me no connect with my friend and it seemed not much would happening at the park for quite awhile. So after 20 minutos of watching a 3 legged dog court a much smaller pooch and the Dominican kids play basketball I decided to go look for Gitanos and Flamenco authentico.

Let’s face it Barcelona is not Andalusia when it comes to flamenco culture but it does exist. Gitanos (Gypsies) live in three parts of the city; the Gracia, Besos, a tiny part of the Raval and apparently around the aforementioned park.Oops I guess that's four. OK first of all 8 p.m. on Saturday night in Spain is like 10:30 on Sunday morning everyplace else in the world. Something will eventually get going but when is not exactly sure.

I hop on my bike and ride over to a little plaza in the Raval. From what I hear is known as the traditional home the Barcelona Gitano establishment; famous Gitano singers, musicans and artists have all lived here. It’s also where St. Eulalia, one of the two patrons saints of Barcelona was crucified by the Romans but that’s another story. The route I took between these neighborhoods is interesting in that it cuts through so many diverse sections of the city.

First the Ribera now home to Dominicans, North Africans, hip media professionals and art types and of course soon the gentry. Then the Born the beautiful but formerly seedy port adjacent neighborhood now throbbing with uber fashionable bars, clubs and restaurants. Then across Via Laietana, a wide boulevard cut through the lower heart of the city around the the turn of the century. It's not one of it’s most most beautiful. Then through the medieval Barrio Gotico which is located around the Cathedral. Then the scruffy but popular tourista areas adjacent to the famous or infamous Ramblas depending on how you feel about it. Then over the beautiful but tawdry Ramblas crawling with tourists and pick pockets and restaurants selling bad food and giant beers to drunken Northern Europeans among others.

The Ramblas is also known for the 9th wonder of the western world, the Mercado de Sant Josep, better known as the Boqueria. Then through the Raval, also known as the barrio chino. Once known as Barcelona’s roughest neighborhood it’s now a mix of Pakistani, Philipino, north African families and upwardly mobile pioneers. Apparently the barrio chino tag comes from a time when anybody who wasn't white was called a chino. We've come a little ways I guess. There were apparently never any real Chinos in the barrio chino.

So arriving at the plaza in the Raval I can see no signs of smokey gitano bars and duende but again it’s too early. I call my friends Mick and Georgia to see if they wanna join me on my quest. They invite me to go to dinner with them in the Gracia. Ah ha! The Gracia another potential Gypsy barrio. So a change of directions.

I head up through Barrio San Antoni, a wonderful working class Catalan neighborhood, though my neighborhood the Eixample, up Enrique Granados, a lovely tree lined narrow pedestrian friendly street, which to me may be the prettiest calle in the town. Across the Diagonal and into swanky San Gervasi. Then around plaza Lesseps which is in reality an always under construction attempt to heal the Olympic Games installed wound called the Ronda de Dalt which is a freeway furrowed around and through the upper parts of the city.

I eventually drop into one of my favorite neighborhoods. The Gracia used to be a village and still for the most part feels like it. Like a great deal of my favorite parts of the city it has always been a working class mix of workshops, mom and pop tiendas, simple restaurants and old apartment buildings. Now however like every place else in Barcelona real estate prices have skyrocketed and the little old ladies with thier shopping carts are gradually being ousted and replaced by well to do younger folks and foreigners like me.

I join Mick and Georgia at of all things an Australian restaurant. The food firmly embraces the South East Asian vibe and is refreshingly spicy. Spicy is hard to find in Spain. Friendly folks. I should get to know more Aussies.

We talk about men. We talk about women. We talk about men and women. We talk about our kids. We talk about ironing and dishwashers. About real estate. About movies and the biz. We talk about being naked on the beach and how this freaks out American guys like me and I suspect Irish guys like Mick and how it doesn’t bother Georgia who was raised in Germany by hippy academics. After dinner we wander through the Gracia and stop and have a night cap at a bar on one of the plazas. I bid them goodnight and decide to head back down to where I started from.

The park is now packed with people. A generator chugs away powering a PA and a few crude spot lights. It’s a fiesta. The neighborhood is fully represented; the aforementioned Dominicans, North Africans, old Catalans, young pierced squatters and the three legged dog. And miraculously on the crude homemade stage are 2 young purveyors of Flamenco Puro. They look to be no older than 22. But they have the feeling, they have the duende. A young girl gets up and dances. She is lithe and beautiful and seems to be very good. An old man tries to join her. His friends laughingly hold him back. The crowd adds the syncopated rhythmic clapping, las palmas. At 3 in the morning I get my flamenco and realize that I’m still in love with this strange and wonderful place called Spain.