While Christmas ends on December 25 and operas end when the fat lady sings, Ramadan ends when official Muslim spotters see the waxing crescent moon. This year, they didn’t see it until Thursday, so my Friday class was cancelled when all of our students decided to go to parties where they could eat a lot.
With no class today, I took a break from my normal culture-free approach to travels to visit the National Museum of Art (pictured here). It turns out that art can be interesting and I learned a few things. Like these four columns, which were built early in the 20th century to represent the four-striped flag of Catalonia, were torn down by a dictator who didn’t want to give the impression that he approved of Catalonian pride. But he liked the idea of towers in general, so he built two brick towers in the same vicinity. But then after the age of Spanish dictators passed, the original ones were rebuilt so now there are six, four columns and two towers.
But possibly the most disturbing thing I learned concerns my phone. After a couple of hours at the museum, I stopped and bought a café con leche and paid for it by tapping my phone on the card reader (as I always do). A couple of minutes later Martha texted me to say ‘good morning’ and my phone immediately suggested that I reply with a selfie of me holding the coffee I had just bought, a suggestion that was both scary and worthless. It pains me to think that some community had to endure the construction of a data center so that AI could suggest that I text a coffee selfie.
This is the courtyard of my apartment building, which my balcony overlooks.
The neighbors from the next building have a balcony about five feet away from my balcony, but it’s been a little chilly, so we haven’t met yet. I am looking forward to when the weather warms up. I’m sure they’ll laugh when I ask them if they have any Grey Poupon (assuming they’re old enough to remember the commercials).
And here's a little something to brighten your day.
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