Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Saint Peter Won't Call My Name


From the crystal skull hanging in the night sky over the dark bay to the trinkets and toffees of the street market, the procession of radio and the giants moving ominously and massively and slowly into the port and the demons spitting fire, racing along the sand and threatening with their temptations, and the dance of old times, costumes of an age gone by out of sync with the stage and amplification and the orchestras and modern musical hero and the sound of drums, the energetic games on the beach, a ball in volleyed motion, castles upon pillars of sand, the old fishermen gathering in tribute and taking their suppers or their lunches maybe for a last time, the solemn massing, Roman cavalry choirs singing, and the bearing aloft of an image that has patronised and watched over the catches of those old men of the sea with their nets and needles and craft of handiwork and buoyancy, and the buoyant flotilla criss-crossing the bay as the darkness descends before being engulfed in bursts and cascades of hundreds of colours and noises and then to a gradual silence as the climax fades to the last embers of fiesta and the passing away for one more year to wait for San Pedro to be repeated and for the call to be issued again to many but to some others not. Or is that the other way round?


Three wheels on my ...
I once had a girlfriend who used a three-wheeled bike. It was the first time I could recall having seen one since I was small. There is something quirky and rather appealing about a tricycle; there should be more of them. There is one in Puerto Pollensa, well a representation of one; it sits on one of the roundabouts of Roundabout New Town that is the bypass, the roundabout for L'Ullal that you exit for the Pollensa Park. It is utterly charming, a piece of old-maid Mary Poppinstry; it is also sinister in its being totally unexpected, its apparent lack of context and, or am I imagining this memory, its echo of the mystery and paranoia of "The Prisoner". It, or rather what is beneath it, boasts a visual gag. The photo is above. The gag is the blue cycle lane, the same as that which runs by the side of the bypass road. It is a sculpture that, in its exactness, its lack of the abstract is striking in its peculiarity and genteel visual surprise. Together with its earth-based airborne companion two roundabouts away, the Canadair by Eroski, the deckchair of Las Gaviotas and the Dijous Bo basket of Inca, the trike forms a collection of the finest of these outdoor art exhibits. Superb.


QUIZ
Yesterday's title - Peter, Paul and Mary, for example. Today's title - and other clues in the first part about the San Pedro fiesta.

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Index for June 2009

All-inclusives - 17 June 2009, 18 June 2009, 19 June 2009, 26 June 2009
Associations - 22 June 2009, 28 June 2009
Bars and bar staff, Puerto Alcúdia - 14 June 2009, 17 June 2009, 18 June 2009, 20 June 2009, 22 June 2009
Bars, music curfew - 10 June 2009, 16 June 2009
British newspapers in Mallorca - 7 June 2009, 8 June 2009, 9 June 2009, 26 June 2009
British population in Mallorca - 7 June 2009
Café Playero Club, Puerto Alcúdia - 16 June 2009
Cala San Vicente - 11 June 2009
Castilian v. Catalan - 1 June 2009, 3 June 2009
Chinese restaurants, Puerto Pollensa - 18 June 2009
Dakota Tex-Mex - 5 June 2009
Demolition of beach bars - 15 June 2009, 16 June 2009
Ensaimada - 25 June 2009
Entertainment - 2 June 2009
ESRA - 28 June 2009
European elections - 1 June 2009
Europeos por Europa - 22 June 2009
Fiestas - 12 June 2009, 13 June 2009, 30 June 2009
Fires at Bellevue - 4 June 2009, 20 June 2009, 24 June 2009
History, Puerto Alcúdia - 20 June 2009
Holiday club sctratch cards - 1 June 2009
Internet, newspapers via the - 9 June 2009
Michael Jackson's death - 27 June 2009
Muro centre upgraded - 10 June 2009
Noise contamination law - 16 June 2009
Playa de Muro market - 24 June 2009
Pollensa, restaurant/bar terraces - 4 June 2009
Potato event, Sa Pobla - 5 June 2009
Proportional representation - 3 June 2009
Puerto Pollensa tourism questionnaire - 29 June 2009
Restaurants and the economic crisis - 25 June 2009
Sa Pobla train breakdown - 25 June 2009
Sant Pere (San Pedro) fiesta, Puerto Alcúdia - 13 June 2009, 30 June 2009
Shop sales slump - 6 June 2009
Son Bauló frontline - 15 June 2009
Talk Of The North - 14 June 2009
Toni Nadal criticises Paris public - 4 June 2009
Tourism crisis - 28 June 2009
Tourism promotion - 4 June 2009, 12 June 2009
Tourism seasonality - 19 June 2009
Tourist information office, Puerto Alcúdia - 19 June 2009
Traditional resorts, are there any? - 23 June 2009
Tricycle roundabout sculpture, Puerto Pollensa - 30 June 2009
Trobada de Músics per la Llengua 2009 - 24 June 2009
Waste collection, Puerto Pollensa - 13 June 2009

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