city life

A city is a collaboration, a jam session with thousands of players that goes on for centuries and occupies some number of blocks or kilometers or miles. Physical geography plays a part—Barcelona is confined between the mountains and the sea, and any creation that happens must take place within that restrictive form. The cities of the plain—Madrid, Los Angeles, Mexico City—aren’t limited in the same way, and sprawl accordingly. Walking with Valerie from Gràcia through the Eixample to the Old City, I might say that we are passing through layers of history. But that isn’t really true. Except for those cities that treat certain neighborhoods as museums, a city isn’t so much a sedimentary record as a palimpsest. The old, the not so old, the new, and the ancient are juxtaposed and confront each other. Or ignore each other, and confront us. This year early spring has lingered into May. The weather continues to be cool and sometimes overcast and rainy and the leaves respond accordingly, still thick and freshly, deeply green, not drying and dusty. The languages mingle: Catalan, Spanish, English, French, German, and all the others I can’t recognize and don’t know the names of…