A personal flamenco journey 9

  

               2. Andalusian cities in Spain

 

In Italy Monet had remarkably little curiosity about new cities or cultures for the sake of novelty and was no tourist at all. He did not feel tempted to go sightseeing. Monet's drive to discover new and diverse sources of motifs was for one purpose only: to paint.

 

 

 

Madrid, Feb., 2006

 

fm: Gohk

 

To: Joon

 

 

 

An Yeoung!

 

After landing in Madrid, safe and sound, I sit at an internet cafe,

 

recalling Monet's way of traveling you told me:

 

 

 

In Italy Monet had remarkably little curiosity about new cities or cultures for the sake of novelty and was no tourist at all. He did not feel tempted to go sightseeing. Monet's drive to discover new and diverse sourses of motifs was for one purpose only: to paint.

 

 

 

Where ever I go in Spain, I will keep it in mind,

 

together with flamenco in one corner of it

 

and the pen in a pocket.

 

 

 

In Mad Hostel

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

Granada, Feb., 2006 

 

Dear Lau:

 

 

 

I am here in Granada, feeling sorrowful at a jewel of
abstraction, light-blue and white, twinkling in a
desert of vicissitudes of our life.

Standing before a certain dawn of Granada, the sky of
which is covered with thick black clouds,  

 

Thinking of You,

 

Gohk  

 

 

 

Granada, Mar., 2006
Hi, Lau

 

How are you doing?

 

Just a note to say hola!

With the Gran Via calle of Granada as a center of my
temporary resident, I am enjoying a tramping life
here, some in loneliness and some in sweet freedom.,
A night in a cafe sipping Sherry, vino of Jerez product,
another in a flamenco tableau listening to flamenco cante,

 

I have appreciated the exotic air of this city, warm and sweet.

And a day I have been to Malaga by bus

 

in order to see the Mediteranean sea only ,

 

and another day I had a nice lunch at a street cafe in Seviila

 

full of arabic atmosphere.

Last night I tried 2 times in vain, probably owing to
the internet problem, to contact Sasha,

 

a Spainish friend of yours.

I will have about 10 days more in this city reading
´the tales of Alhambra´ by Washington Irving I love.

See you,
Gohk 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, March. 2006

 

Dear Gohk!
  
Oh my goodness!  I am so excited for you! 

 

Granada is a magical  city-you will love it so very much. 

 

While I love the Flamenco of Jerez  most,

 

Granada as a city is my favorite of all.
I cannot wait to hear about your adventures. 

 

Please be safe and  enjoy!
  
'PS'

 

We do not have our daughther yet, there were some
 complications with the  adoption process,

 

but we are trying to be patient!
  
Abrazos!
 Lau

 

 

 

Cadiz, Apr. , 2006

 

 

 

Dear Lau:

 

 

 

Cadiz is coming closer to me

 

 as a city of light,

 

sea sound,

 

and wind on the top of the trees.

 

 

 

Granada was going farther behind

 

as a city of shadow, silence, and grey glory.

 

I am excited in Cadiz

 

as if in my boyhood,

 

to imagine seagulls flying over me,

 

and the shining silver backs of fish

 

that I used to enjoy.

 

 

 

I was triste at dawn black in Granada

 

to see in the dream my mother

 

looking at me in silence

 

and be reminded of a saying:

 

I Taste blood in my mouth

 

when I sing deep song as I pleased.

 

 

 

At a hostel named Casa Caracol

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, Apr., 2006

 

Dearest Gohk 

 

  I am so excited that you are wandering in Andalucia!

 

I wish that I  could be  there to experience it with you-

 

it is a magical place! 

 

I am sure  you are  finding all the inspiration

 

that you need to create your next  work.

 

Thinking of you!

 

abrazos,

 

 Lau

 

 

 

Cadiz, Apr., 2006

 

 Dear Lau 

 

 

 

<In a hostel of Cadiz named Casa Caracol 

 

I send by email a poem,

 

the inspiration of which hit me at my days in Cadiz>   

 

 

 

 

 

'Granada'

I see in the desolate desert of black gravels

 

Granada, a grand marble of geometrical abstraction,
light and shadow of our existential life.

I see in the darkness of a deep-clouded midday
a surprising dawn of poetic dim twilight
some in fear
some in wonder.

I hear two girls on the street
one of whom enchants my eyes
with her twinkling white gem of a smile
on her egg-shaped face
talking to each other
which is to my ears just rhythmic sound.

It is a tragedy for the beauty
to be alive
a moment destined to be nothing
like morning dews
like the glory of Granada.


Longing for the sea,
Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cadiz, Mar., 2006

 

< In Cadiz I send a email to Lau

 

on the sceneries of Cordoba and Granada.>

 

 

 

Hi Lau!

 

Today I made a long bus trip to Seville via Cordoba.

 

I Returned to Granada in the evening, when a poem of garcia,

 

<Cordoba , remote and lonely>, burst on me.

 

Perhaps the image of the triste scenery, kept alive in my mind,

 

of the bare and shrub-covered slopes which I had passed

 

through along toward Cordoba, the old city of the Moors,

 

seemed to present it for this simple wanderer.

 

 

Córdoba,
distant and alone.

Black pony, big moon,
olives in my saddlebag.
Though I know these roads,
I’ll never reach Córdoba.

Through the plains, through wind,
black pony, red moon,
death watching me
from the high towers of Córdoba.

Ay! What a long road.
Ay! What a brave pony.
Ay! Death, you will take me,
on the road to Córdoba.

Córdoba,
distant and alone.

 

 

 

In love of you as a bailaora

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

Cadiz, Mar., 2006

 

Dear Lau:

 

 

 

Cadiz is coming closer to me

 

as a city of light,

 

sea sound,

 

and wind on the top of the trees.

 

 

 

Granada was going farther behind

 

as a city of shadow, silence, and grey glory.

 

 

 

I am excited in Cadiz

 

as if in my boyhood,

 

to imagine seagulls flying over me,

 

and the shining silver backs of fish

 

that I used to enjoy.

 

 

 

I was triste at dawn black in Granada

 

to see in the dream my mother

 

looking at me in silence

 

and be reminded of a saying:

 

'I Taste blood in my mouth

 

when I sing deep song as I pleased.'

 

 

 

At a hostel named Casa Caracol

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spain, Mar., 2006

 

To: Joon Kim

 

Fm: Gohk

 

 

 

AnYeoung, Joon!

 

In Seville at the bus terminal, I am scribbling, my back on a tree, a note of impression on the capital of Andalusia. During my stay in Spain I have been here in Seville 2 times, but I just hesitated at the outer block of this city ,failing to go inside to the downtown.

 

 

Whenever I stopped here, the first thing I had to do was, strangely enough, to buy the tickets for the last bus for the day to my destinations, the first time to Granada and the second time to Cadis. You know, I am a just Liberal-minded traveler here in Spain!

 

 

 

Were I given a chance to visit this city next time, I would never fail to go inside to the downtown in order to visit to two places: one is the bullring where bullfighter Ignacioa Sanchez Mejias was killed to death, and the other the Cemetery of San Fernando where he lies buried.

 

 

 

...............

 

...................

 

‘ Nobody knows you. But I sing of you.

 

For posterity I sing of your profile and grace.

 

Of the signal maturity of your understanding.

 

Of your appetite for death and the taste of its mouth.

 

Of the sadness of your once valiant gaiety.

 

 

 

It will be a long time , if ever, before there is born

 

an Andalusian so true, so rich in adventure.

 

I sing of his elegance with words that groan

 

and I remember a sad breeze through the olive trees.

 

( by Garcia Lorca)

 

 

Thinking of a friend and aesthete

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cadiz, Apr., 2006

 

Hi, Lau.

 

with concentration on the seasound,

 

I have spent 5 days here in Cadiz ,

 

the city of the old castle surrounded by sea. 

 

I have been to Morroco today

 

via Tarifa, land of the wind,

 

crossing the Gibraltar Strait,

 

which holds the Atlantic ocean on one side and

 

the Mediterranean sea on the other side.

 

 

 

While Granada was, to my mind, a cave of flamenco,

 

Cadiz is a dry and antique castle of sea wind

 

 

 

At cadiz,

 

feeling again the deep sea fever I had as a pain in my youth,

 

Gohk.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Cadiz, Apr.,2006

 

Hola, Lau:

Now I am greeting the last night in Cadiz,
intoxicated with seasound n glasses of vino blanco.
Tomorrow I will be in Jerrez, the land of sherry n Buleria.

Abrazos
Gohk
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, Apr. 2006

Oh dear Gohk! 

 

Thank you for letting me experience
once again the  wonder of Andalucia through your emails!
 
Much love,
Lau
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jerez. Apr., 2006

 

 Dear Lau:

 

Buenos dias!

 

It is in Jerez that I understood more what flamenco is in essence through unaccompanied cante. And it is here in Jerez that I could resist the temptation of tabaco no more. It is also in Jerez that I read a quotation of deep song as below: 

 

 

 

 Una noche oscurita  

 

 Yobiendo estaba; 

 

 Con la lus e tus ojos  

 

 Yo m alumbra

 

 

 

One dark night

 

In the falling rain,

 

By the light in your eyes

 

I lit my way

 

 

 

Baile of Jerez seems to me much deeper and more imaginative in art

 

than those of any other cities where I stayed in Spain.

 

 

 

Smelling tabaco in the pocket,

 

Gohk 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madrid, Apr., 2006

 

Dear Lau

 

I am  back again safe ,but Sangria-drunken  in Madrid

 

thinking of my precious Spain trip.

 

 

 

Madrid will be remembered as a city of rain. The first night in this city into which I was going by taxi from the airport, it was drizzling. And now again I am looking at the scene outside drizzling through the window of Secorbus running back to this city. 

 

 

 

Granada would be a city of artificial caves forf lamenco filled with past legends of glory which Washington Irving loved. 

 

 

 

Cadiz by the roaring sound of the sea reminded me of a pier scenery of Moby Dick written by Hermann Melville.

 

 

 

Malaga was a triste city where I breathed in the sweet sea smell

 

for the first time since my Spain trip for Flamenco.

 

 

 

Jerrez was an inspiring city ,full of sherry  smell, keeping flamenco as what it is in essence, indispensible for my writing .Thinking of the saying by a flamenco : 'flamenco is the tragety in the first person'.

 

abrazos

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

Portland, Apr., 2006

 

 Dear Gohk

 

  I am so glad you have made your way to Jerez, my home away !  

 

I am even more happy to hear from you that you are safe 

 

and that you are fulfilling your dream to travel in Spain!

 

Abrazos,

 

Lau

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Madrid, Apr., 2006

 

Dear Lau:

 

Madrid is a little different from Andalusia in the cultural atmosphere.

 

Here in front of Museum of Prado I got a rare precious experience of my soul being purified, listening to the music of Bach played by an anonymous street guitarist. It seems that this city tries to resist to Andalusian culture. There in Jerez, you know, I experienced a deep feeling of my eyes being wet in stoic resignation through flamenco cante in the falling rain outside.

 

Gohk

 

 

 

 

 

Madrid, Apr., 2006

 

Dear Lau:

My visit to Madrid would be ended as just a
short tourism, If I had not had a good luck, as below, 

 

to meet a street guitarist playing a Bach ,
to take a long walk in the Museo of MNCARS where I
stood looking at a modern painting titled Louvre

 

together with other several modern artworks familiar to me,
and lastly to find an time-worn  cinema hall 5 minutes walk away

 

from the hostel MAD where I have stayed, which gave me as a gift a movie

 

regarding Carmen Amaya dancing flamenco.
 

 

 

Late at my last night in Spain here, dim and drizzling outside

 

I sit in a bar alone with my ears given to classical musics

 

over vino blanco and smoking tobacco.

 

That is a rare experience for me to taste a deep solitude,

 

a kind of an ordor of nostalgia, pure and dry.

 

different from the loneliness, sorrowful and wet.

Adios
Gohk