Travels: Spain and Portugal

Gathering some of the notes and photos I posted on FB during our excursion. The main event was the 20th Biennial International Ernest Hemingway Society Conference in San Sebastián and Bilbao, Spain, or Basque Country, Euskal Herria as the locals would rather hear it. I’ll aim to expand and revise as I proceed, so this post may evolve over time, especially as I look deeper and more critically at photos.

Wednesday, July 10, Barcelona

Didn't take long to absorb a new appreciation for Joan Miró at his @fundaciomiro in Barcelona. What a gorgeous spread of the surreal spirit. First taste of Barcelona after a long travel day was a pretty fine Italian sandwich from a place near our hotel. Later, for early din, we had what might be the first of a long series of tapas on this journey, with a Vermut aperitif and a glass of Spanish red. First Gaudi sighting: the Guell Palace. No encounters with anti-tourist protestors, but the place and its narrow alleyways are certainly abuzz with people. You can hardly avoid La Rambla, the main pedestrian thoroughfare. Struck me something like Duval Street on steroids. IYKYK. Closed out the day in the hotel bar watching England shock the Dutch in the Euro.

Thursday, July 11, Barcelona

Gaudi: Casa Battló

It's rather impressive to see how much the experience of Barcelona involves the architecture of Antoni Gaudi. The city's ancient stone bones share the spotlight with Gaudi's pop-eyed, playful, curvy, and sensuous inventions. There's of course the Sagrada Familia, still under construction but nearing completion after all these years. We got immersed in Casa Battló, one of the most brilliant architectural redos you'll ever see. The tour experience (jammed with people) begins and ends with contemporary psychedelic dreamscapes. The latter is an AI creation by Refik Anadol, whose earlier deployment of collection data turned a huge wall at the Museum of Modern Art in NY into a plasmatic performance of bursting color.

Friday, July 12, Barcelona

Given we'll soon be immersed in Hemingway world, I was happy (not the right word) to trip upon an exhibit of art and the Spanish Civil War at the Museu Nacional D'Art de Catalunya in Barcelona (below)). Stunning and painful images of all kinds, including another Miró.

Sunday, July 14, San Sebastián

Before the opening of our Hemingway conference tonight in San Sebastian (Donostia, as Basque people call it), we went to a civic cultural center to see an exhibit of Hemingway's long experience with Basque culture, people and places. Saw some images and info I was unfamiliar with, so enlightenment happened.

Tuesday, July 16, San Sebastián

The 20th International Ernest Hemingway Society enters its third day later today in San Sebastián, Spain. On Monday I moderated one panel and gave a paper (on the short story "After the Storm"), so now my "work" is done. It's great to be among old and new friends, and to marvel at all the good research being done by scholars and writers in various fields (marine biology, geography, journalism, fiction, poetry, dance, art, food) and from all over: Spain, of course, U.K., Georgia (republic), Serbia, Japan, France, U.S. and Canada. And, in San Sebastian, a scenic, seemingly prosperous place, some of the world's best eating beckons day and night. Last night we elbowed our way into a pintxos bar that, on good authority, was a favorite of Anthony Bourdain's: a bacalao dish and lengua en salsa were delicioso. And the vermut (on the rocks, with an orange slice, which we've been sampling nightly since we started in Barcelona) had a distinctive essence of thyme in the nose. Will have to go back to view the bottle. More panels today and dinner honoring our young scholarship recipients at a cidery.

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Elena Zolotariov (right) is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of London. We met in Wyoming a couple of years ago. She is the real deal and represents the future of Hemingway studies. She introduced me to two attendees from Georgia.

Wednesday, July 17

This morning we leave San Sebastián for Bilbao on a bus trip via a noted winery. Tuesday (I think it was) brought more deep dives at the Hemingway conference. We heard from the editorial team at the Hemingway Letters Project, which has just produced volume 6 of his collected letters, another big book covering less than two years, 1934-36. Other papers we heard examined aspects of dance, prompted largely by The Sun Also Rises (glad I reread it on the flight crossing the pond a week ago), Hemingway on film (especially as used by teachers), as well as the work of Martha Gellhorn, the writer and unhappy survivor of EH's marriage No. 3. In town we returned to the little Haizea Bar for breakfast and wound up the evening at a cidery for a dinner and drinkfest honoring the young recipients of Hemingway Society travel and research grants.

I was honored to be included on a panel with Japanese scholars Kaori Fairbanks and Hideo Yanagisawa, with whom I've been acquainted for many years.

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Wine was the theme of our excursion toward Bilbao on Wednesday. A visit to the Marques de Riscal wine estate, where Frank Gehry built a hotel expansion in 2006 (inset; no time to look inside, so this was just a tease before our visit to the Guggenheim Bilbao on Friday.). A fabulous restaurant lunch, with generous pours of bianco (Verdejo from the Ribera de Rueda) and the Rioja region's predominant tinto (Tempranillo). A stroll through the walled village of Laguardia, including a guided tour of a wine producer's cave inside the town's medieval system of elaborate tunnels.

Thursday, July 18

A musical interlude for my friends in The Hemingway Society: Today at the proceedings of our international conference in Bilbao, Spain, one session served as a tribute to two recently deceased Hemingway scholars--Donald Junkins and H.R. "Stoney" Stoneback. Mike Roos sang his song "The Unfinished Church," which draws from scenes in The Sun Also Rises and was encouraged by Stoney. In addition, two former students of Stoney at New Paltz, Alex Pennisi and Joe Curra, played the late Jerry Jeff Walker's great early road song about our friend Stoney. I once interviewed Walker and got to discuss our mutual connection with Stoney. Always loved this tune, even before I knew Stoney. Both vids on my YT site.

https://youtu.be/CbqhADOOZ1M?si=MBc7SfzsiPC3715X

https://youtu.be/Gs-BXK7u6KE?si=fbw4UfW-w42c54zq

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First glimpse last night of Gehry's Guggenheim in Bilbao. We'll spend time there later today. At Thursday's Hemingway conference sessions: Linda Patterson Miller (l), author of the landmark essay "Why I love Papa," talked about rattling the male scholars' cage back in the 1980s, helping to open Hemingway studies not only to female scholars but also to female and personal voices in writing (including Ann Putnam at right). This led to lively discussion of the longstanding tussle in academia over first-person prose and memoir. This is somewhat similar to what we talk about in my overlapping world of biography, the hybridizing of the craft with memoir. Big topic, long story for later. With the public domaining of The Sun Also Rises, we heard from four editors who have produced four(!) distinct new editions of EH's first novel, one for public consumption, three aimed at classroom use. The projected final volume of the Hemingway Letters, expected to be pubbed in the 1940s, is being worked on now because we still have Valerie Hemingway in our midst, and she was right there as EH's secretary, taking his dictation for most letters in 1959 till the end, in '61. Jerry Kennedy had a brilliant take on those last years, including the travails of The Dangerous Summer, and Michael von Cannon described the editing process and other discoveries for Vol. 17. Later: a pelota (jai alai) demonstration, pintxos and drinks with friends and nightcap with a good crowd at the hotel lounge, conveniently located down the hall from our room.

Friday, July 19

Every day in and around our international Hemingway conference has brought moments of enlightenment, delight and discovery. Friday began with a debate over whether and how the Soviet Union tried to lure Hemingway into its world as a propaganda tool. He would've preferred to be paid royalties for several Russian translations, but significantly rebuffed a royalty offer (this was Cold War era) by saying (in the letter posted below) he wouldn't accept unless Soviets paid all American authors what they were owed. Also in panels: Carl Eby's great exploration of the Basque landscape and mood that was mostly shorn out of the shrunken published edition of The Garden of Eden. Argentinian Hemingway scholar Ricardo Koon also detailed EH's Basque connections in Spain and Cuba. His photos included one shot of EH and Lauren Bacall outside the Carlton Hotel, where we've been staying and conferencing this week. We took an afternoon excursion to the Guggenheim Bilbao, which I'll post separately. The evening was capped by a wonderful spread of food along with music by a Dutch singer-songwriter who recorded a song cycle inspired by EH's first story collection, In Our Time. The Hemingway Society.

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Bilbao afternoon. Calatrava, et al. River walk. Great Gehry. RIP Richard Serra. Oldenburg surprise. The damn Puppy love.

Richard Serra at the Guggenheim Bilbao

Sunday, July 21

Valerie Hemingway, then and now (with Jerry Kennedy)

Salud and feliz cumpleaños for Ernest Hemingway's 125th birthday (July 21). Our Hemingway Society conference concluded last night with a banquet, vino and long goodbys to friends. During the day we heard a stimulating and important panel on race, racism and related problems in teaching Hemingway in the current environment. There was a panel on modernism and the avant-garde. Our friend Rachel Neikirk guided us to country and Americana music inspired by EH (check out Turnpike Troubadours' latest record: A Cat in the Rain). And Valerie Hemingway recounted traveling Spain with EH in 1959, including an epic 60th birthday party. Now we'll take a quick trip to Gernika today, spend a bit more time with friends tonight in Bilbao, then off to Portugal.

Monday, July 22

Full-scale ceramic tile replica of Picasso’s epic painting, in Guernica/Gernika.

At the risk of over-sharing: Our last day in Bilbao included a day-trip to Gernika, site of the horrific Nazi bombing of innocents during the Spanish Civil War, 1937, and subject of the epic Picasso canvas. The town mounted a mosaic tile replica of the painting and a display of photos in the civic plaza outside a Peace Museum. Our guided excursion included a stop in Mundaka, a onetime whaling village now overrun by surfers and summer tourists. There's local opposition to the Guggenheim Foundation, which wants to open yet another art museum adjacent to a nature preserve a mere 35 kilometers or so from the big one in Bilbao. We also witnessed a protest moment having to do with improving the local bus service. Our tour also included a great recap of Basque history and a grueling hike to a church high atop an island mountain, San Juan de Gaztelugatxe (below). The many pilgrims here might have had an interest in St. John, but little did I know of the scenic connection to "Game of Thrones." Gorgeous coastal scenery. And off in the distance, the remains of a never deployed nuclear power plant, halted after an eruption of murderous Basque terrorism in the early 1980s.

Thurday, July 25

Porto is a gritty, dense, and scenic historic city with winding, narrow, and steep streets that might put you in mind of parts of San Francisco. We've had good and great food, and a long, rewarding excursion to the Douro wine valley, including a breezy jaunt on the river (will post those photos later). But the absolute discovery for us was the Serralves Foundation's Contemporary Art Museum. Yasoi Kusama is everywhere, but here we saw a career-spanning survey, including many early works we'd never seen. Other exhibits ranged from local radical history to up-to-the-minute abstraction and politically charged art. A sculpture park with major names (Eliasson, Kapoor, Oldenburg, Serra) and a satellite building in an art deco mansion featured gay-themed work of an art duo, including an installation that evoked Kansas. The main building's architect was unknown to me, but Álvaro Siza turns out to be a giant. The museum (originally opened in 2005) unveiled a new wing also by him late last year. The sleek addition includes a huge exhibit, sprawling through five rooms, of Siza’s archives and models. Outstanding. And now reading a book of Siza's essays. The journey continues.

Saturday, July 27

Winding down our three days in Lisbon. The fish was fine. As was the fado. Our new-found interest in the Portuguese architect Álvaro Siza got a serendipitous boost in an exhibit at the Gulbenkian Museum. And how did we not know that there was a Banksy Museum here, a commercial venture celebrating the subversive street artist. I went to the Contemporary Art Museum/CCB while my traveling companions went shopping. Very good collection of 20th-century isms, a show featuring the nature-grounded work of a female Bangladeshi architect, Marina Tabassum, and the main attraction (for me): "Evidence," a cosmic, earth and sun reverent soundscape and multi-media exhibit co-created by Patti Smith. Tough to explain, but it was suitably dreamy and mesmerizing.

At Fado au Carmo—Cláudia Picado with Luís Guerreiro (guitarra) and Alexandre Silva; my video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sFk6HVnVbBs

Baseball and KC's Crossroads? Can't We Devise a Better Plan?

A belated posting from earlier this year on the eve of the crucial vote that put a stop to the building of a baseball stadium in Kansas City’s arts district. For now. I think the ideas still hold. We’re still waiting for Plan B. The piece first appeared online at kcstudio.org

In the gallery above, scens both inside and outside the footprint of the proposed Royals stadium in the Crossroads Arts District.

By STEVE PAUL

(c) 2024, Steve Paul

Is it possible to be both a baseball fan and against the Kansas City Royals’ proposal to build a downtown park in the Crossroads Arts District? Well, why yes it is.

I went to the season-opening game on Thursday, not necessarily out of loyalty to the Royals but because a friend was in from out of town and wanted to go. As we sat there in the sunny upper deck, amid a sold-out crowd, the team largely displayed its all-too-frequent, uninspiring ways. (There’s hope for the team’s new starting pitchers and anxiety over a continued lack of offense and ineffective bullpen.)

But what I also thought about the enormous waste—economic and ecological—that would occur if Kauffman Stadium were imploded and scraped away, largely for the benefit of the football team that has shared the Truman Sports Complex for half a century.

Other than that, I’m not really opposed to further invigorating downtown with a baseball park. Nevertheless, like most of the people I know who have made the Crossroads synonymous with creative culture in Kansas City, I am opposed to the proposed location. Scraping and replacing the Kansas City Star’s modern printing plant (vintage 2006) seems like another waste, though one might empathize with the owners of the white (green) elephant who must’ve known they were taking a risk when they bought it and haven’t yet thought of anything else to occupy what could yet be a landmark building downtown.

I certainly understand some of the economic synergies that might occur. Foremost are the potentially lugubrious connections that this ballpark would make with the existing Power & Light “entertainment district” and the T-Mobile Center by way of the South Loop Park, which is envisioned to cap the highway in between it all. Perhaps this would alleviate some of the extra pressure that undoubtedly would occur in the neighboring blocks and businesses in and outside the ballpark’s proposed footprint. I’m hearing that one of the main beneficiaries of this vision would be the Cordish Cos., developer of Power & Light and the adjacent luxury high-rises, all of which are subsidized by an approximate $14 million annual contribution by the city (hello, taxpayers). But Cordish and their city protectors should not be calling the shots here.

Well, it should be no surprise to anyone who knows me—and this is not about me—that I am in solidarity with most of my artist and hospitality and Crossroads friends in standing against this big idea. A Crossroads baseball stadium wouldn’t necessarily destroy the neighborhood, but it would change it irrevocably. Which is why—this took a while to get here in real time—I’ll be voting no on extending the sports-sustaining three-eighths cents sales tax on Tuesday.

I’m not a sentimentalist, and I’m not opposed to change. I spent something like 45 years in the historic Kansas City Star building, which would still stand across 17th Street to the south of the stadium site, assuming its long-overdue redevelopment gets back on track and succeeds. My last office in the building directly overlooked the Brick across McGee Street, the quirky and lovely bar, grill and edgy music venue that will surely suffer during construction and after the neighborhood aura transforms to something that will probably be incompatible. OK, this is maybe sentimental: The Brick still serves burgers in the style of menu staples of its predecessor, The Pub, in the 1970s. 

But why disrupt the clearly successful and organic growth of the creative-oriented Crossroads with a gargantuan, big-footed intruder from the world of sports. Next we’ll see an influx of betting parlors, right?  

In the run-up to this late-breaking and ham-handed reveal of the Crossroads plan, the Royals led us to believe that they were seriously considering two other locations. One was in a largely industrial stretch of North Kansas City, and, frankly, people, I didn’t think this was as far-fetched of an option as it appeared. I mean, the site would have been in view of downtown and just across the Missouri River, and maybe we’d get water taxis or another bridge to go along with it.

The other site, the East Village, would’ve filled in a rather barren area northeast of City Hall and adjacent to the headquarters of J.E. Dunn, the contracting firm that, lo and behold, would probably build the stadium wherever it might go. Small town!

It’s clear that the Royals ownership was convinced—cajoled? hoodwinked?—into thinking that the East Village option would be more expensive than the Crossroads option, because with the latter they wouldn’t have to follow through with their promise to wrap in a new entertainment district surrounding a new stadium.

Granted, the East Village would be several more blocks away from Power & Light, and a new “entertainment district” might cannibalize the existing, tax-supported playground.

But I tend to operate in a mode of wishful-thinking idealism, and I can’t help but suggest that urban planning and architectural visionaries might be able to devise solutions that would help everyone, including the community of regular people and business owners who would most be affected by having a major league ball park in their front yards. Could there be mass-transit solutions connecting East Village with Power & Light? Of course. Could a lively street-level connection be developed to enhance the pedestrian experience from one location to the other? Surely.

For that matter, I still wonder whether it would make even more sense to build a new baseball stadium farther east in the Crossroads. This would create a logical synergy, efficiently connecting the Crossroads with the 18th and Vine District, perhaps even spurring a new east-west streetcar line. The Royals already have planted the Urban Youth Baseball Academy to the north of 18th and Vine. And the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum is on the verge of raising money to build a new, expanded facility in the district. Hello, does opportunity knock? Some sentimentalists might also recall when the old Municipal Stadium at 21st and Brooklyn, just a few blocks east of 18th and Vine, operated under clouds of Arthur Bryant’s barbecue smoke.

If the April 2 tax proposal goes up in smoke, as it were, here is what I’m hoping: The Royals (not so much the football team) will get the message that they have to do better (not just as a baseball team). Team officials did a lousy job, or no job at all, connecting with potential neighbors and stakeholders south of Truman Road. They did a lousy job of understanding the history and potential future of the Crossroads. They tossed a horrendously wild pitch.

The Royals’ principal owner, John Sherman, is a decent fellow with a proven record as a supporter of the Kansas City community. I know it’s fashionable to denounce him as a billionaire, but so effin’ what if his heart is in the right place. I’m hoping he hears through the noise of hyperbole and, if the no-vote prevails, comes to a better solution.

If the tax passes on Tuesday, I hope Sherman will do a better job of listening. And I also hope there will be time and inclination to mitigate the impact a stadium construction project would have on the Crossroads. I had a waking dream one recent night that stadium architects could somehow peel back the northeast corner of the bowl in order to preserve, protect, and even enhance the occupants of the east side of Oak Street, from Green Dirt at 16th to the Chartreuse Saloon at 17th. (Ha, more wishful thinking.) We’ll just have to see what if any effect would come, presuming this goes forward, under the late-announced plan to keep Oak Street open.

I’m pretty much in the camp that neither the Royals nor their Truman Sports Complex neighbors will be going anywhere else anytime soon. Will the Kansas side try to lure them? Will more lies be told to keep taxpayers in line? Sure and sure.

Let’s just hope that good sense wins out, and, after the teams and Jackson County lick their wounds, they’ll come up with a more palatable Plan B. That’s B, for baseball.

The Kansas City Star Leaves its Historic Home

My friends and former colleagues at The Kansas City Star packed up their stuff the other day and moved from their historic building at 1729 Grand to new quarters in the printing plant across the street. The old brick building is bound for a new future. I wrote this piece for the Connecting blog, which maintains a network for the Associated Press. The AP's Kansas City bureau was housed at 1729 Grand for something like 60 years, so it shares in the building's history as well.

Here's the link (scroll to the second item on the page: http://campaign.r20.constantcontact.com/render?m=1116239949582&ca=fe15d003-e1fc-4e3e-b443-141c3f2edd47   

Frank Lloyd Wright's Unity Temple

My recent book-tour travels took me to Hemingway's hometown of Oak Park, Ill. But Oak Park is also the home of Frank Lloyd Wright and offers sprawling museum of his work -- his home and studio, of course, numerous houses and this church, Wright's first public building (c. 1908). The Unity Temple near downtown Oak Park was closed for two years and reopened in summer 2017 after a detailed and loving restoration. What a glorious space. Contemplative and quiet, focusing and transporting at the same time. The earth tones, the geometrics, the oak trim, the daylight, the tension and interplay between the concrete-cube exterior and the wide-open, comforting interior. My pictures don't exactly do it justice, but I hope they do give you a sense of a walking tour of the place.