Of bombs and 'floral jocs'

Let's be clear that the title of this article ("Bombas y jocs florals ") is a rip-off. The person who combines both nouns with such defining precision is Josep Maria Ventosa , the non-fiction editor at Tusquets, and he does so during the launch of a cultural history of Barcelona that spans from the first Universal Exposition in 1888 to the abrupt end of its effervescence with the Civil War. The city of marvels: Mendoza nailed it. We're talking about Bohemia y barricadas , the new essay by Andreu Navarra .

Wednesday, Laie bookstore. I distinguish the novelist Juan Vico among the audience. The first of the two masters of ceremonies, the journalist and professor Joan Safont , paints a portrait of that fin-de-siècle Barcelona: the walls have just been demolished, and from being a mere village, with its convents and "poorly ventilated rooms," it has become a cosmopolitan city that attempts to reflect itself in the mirror of Paris. A vibrant city where all possible -isms converge: republicanism, anarchism, Catalanism, noucentisme, spiritualism, feminism, gunslingerism. A melting pot of contrasts, from the gatherings of a master thinker like Eugeni d'Ors to the fiery nights at the La Criolla cabaret.

Historian Andreu Navarra presents a cultural history of Barcelona's losing bohemian scene.

The essay focuses on losers and losers , the swindling of "writers who smell bad." Navarra says that, while Madrid has known how to exalt its bohemian scene, with figures like Alejandro Sawa (the inspiration for Valle-Inclan's Max Extrella), Barcelona hasn't paid as much attention to eccentric and priceless creatures like Màrius Aguilar, a man always in love, who slept wherever he could but, according to Josep Pla, tackled his plate of fried eggs with a knife and fork.

What remains of that bubbling city, of the fiery rose's brilliance, alas? The second presenter, David Alegre , PhD in Comparative History, dares to sarcastically venture whether it has perhaps transformed into the city of the three Gs: "Gentrification, foreigners, and seagulls." What a can of worms to open almost at the end of the event! In any case, the room erupts in applause, while Safont orders a bottle of absinthe for a toast, which never arrives.

Ah, Barcelona, ​​enchantress, marabou, archive of courtesy, enciphering homeland of the brave. The damn thing radiates such seductive magnetism that there are countless foreign artists who have cast their mesmerized eyes upon it, hence the City Council's launch of an interesting book collection: Barcelona in Universal Literature . The first two volumes were presented on Thursday at the Marès Museum: Solare, notturna e sonora , by Amaranta Sbardella (the Italian view of the city), and La ciutat incandescent , by Ricard Ripoll (the French view ).

Ripoll entertained the audience with anecdotes featuring illustrious French speakers, such as Arthur Cravan's drunken fight at the Monumental or André Breton's lecture at the Ateneu in 1922. The interminable post-war period also attracted French interest, especially from authors of rather weak crime novels, who recounted sordid incidents and unpleasant odours.

Luis Cabrera arrived in Barcelona on August 19, 1964, specifically in the Verdún neighborhood, from an Andalusia as magical as it was miserable. This universe is the focus of his second novel, La muerte no desvelada (The Unveiled Death) (Ediciones B), sponsored by the philosopher Ferran Sáez Mateu and the journalist Jordi Panyella . What a drawing power the founder of Taller de Músics has. Around 200 people, counted by eye, crowded into the Casa del Llibre on Rambla Catalunya on Monday, a very diverse audience, as they say these days: the presenter Justo Molinero ; Rogeli Herrero , from Los Manolos; and the former deputies Eulàlia Vintró and Oriol Pujol . There are not enough lines to list them all, just as there were not enough chairs and books by the author.

Cabrera sang a little song, even though he was hoarse and tired from a trip on the high-speed train "down there." He also remembered a phrase from Morente, one of those to cut out and keep in your wallet: "We're alive by a miracle."