Carmona

Strategic. Carmona, a rook, in Spain's chessboard history. A natural escarpment overlooking, controlling the fertile fields and navigable rivers beyond. To the south, one weak point secured by Carthaginians to Romans to Spaniards with fortified walls--sticks, stones and bones. At the far end, a crematorium still scorched by the fires of Roman dead.

Raining in Spain

June 6. Rain! Thunder rolls across rooftops, punctuated by bolts of lightning. I am not the tallest point by many meters. I linger in the cool air. It will not last the summer.

Calatrava's bridge and the Torre de los Perdigones just outside the old city perimeter offer better strikes, the tower's camera obscura able to capture but not record such a blinding hit.


I imagine hailstones falling in the warm Sevilla air, climatological perdigones (musket pellets) roundng as they drop from such great height.

Papiroflexia o Pinturas Andaluza

The Bellver Collection evokes the Andalucia of Carmen, its paintings by her native and not-so-native sons fill the walls of two galleries at the Museo de Bellas Artes de Sevilla. Romance, in the art history sense--señoritas flashing dark eyes from behind their mantillas and abanicos (fans). Zurbarán, Becquer, Murillo, Gonzalo Bilbao. . . Iterations of popular culture well into mid-century modern.



A museum guard mans the desk at the entrance, folding minute pieces of paper. Origami nazarenos. Costumbres populares. Paper folded, formed.