To my friend Sergio Avecilla and his boyfriend
Today I saw the arrival of the Triana's Hope to Seville, crossing an imaginary pontoon bridge, over a river of heads looking at the pure blue of the morning through the lace of the canopy that was embroidered, with golden sea nets, in the Caro's Workshop.
The Virgin has been flamencoing across the border that divides reality from imagination, truth from dreams. I have seen and felt her with a book under her arm, with the Seville. Biography of the Golden City, Eva Diaz PerezA book that captures in its nearly five hundred pages the essence of this city that sings and exalts the dualities of life: Triana and Seville, José and Juan, Seville and Betis, “Macarena de Triana” in the voice of Silvio, the three pasitos and the box palios, the stick and the out-of-tune drum, the gypsy seguiriyas and a cante for sevillanas… A book that, almost literally, seeks the soul of the city. And the best part is that it succeeds.
So, I followed the steps of the pasopalio, looking and listening, feeling... and reading. Searching for that essence that its pages tell me. We started very close to Castilla Street and there we had to remember the flamenco festival that it told us about. Estebanez Calderon in its Andalusian scenes, with The planet y The Fillo hand in hand. Thus, we have come closer to the Pópulo Prison, with the march Soleá give me your hand, that through the imaginary bars of the prison the hands of the galley slaves still appear, asking for health and freedom from the one who can do everything.
We have passed by the bust of Antonio Mairena, with his hand raised to the sky of the flamenco voice of the maestro, where he was Café sin Techo and the Ice Cream Shop, that Silverio Franconetti –“king of singers”– he brought the Donkey Café on the riverbank, looking for the tide of Sanlúcar, during the summer months. This is where Lorenzo He put two palms of steel into the entrails of the Canary, because of love affairs with his daughter, The Blonde Colomer.
The music hasn't stopped for a moment. In the meantime, the wax bouquets were being used up to the beat of the little step by little step. And we remembered The Pali at the door of Baratillo, along with his Morena, who Charity They call it that in the city. It was there that he sang his first saeta to La Piedad when he was a child, perched on a rush chair.
—So what, Paco, how did that arrow come out?
—How did it happen? What I don't know is how Christ didn't get down and slap me twice right there in the middle...
«It has been a morning of memories and recollections, searching for Hope from the flamenco lost that Díaz Pérez collects in his brand new book, the one that we would all have liked to write"
We made a stop at the “imperial Adriano street” (Antonio Burgos dixit) to have a small glass of Cazalla brandy, and to get rid of the scratchy feeling in our throats, in case we have to do something cante by soleá to the dark Virgin of the gypsies of the suburb, which the spirits of the old singers who walked around there have whispered in our ears Juraco, Lorente, Perea y Sartorius.
La Bell Square, where he was Recreation room, we have left it to our left. Just like the Kursaal from Velázquez Street, where he displayed Egyptian flamenco The Macarona. And the bronze “from the waist up” of Pastora Empire, who continues dancing and remembering the mystery of Rafael Gómez Ortega, The Rooster. And the tobacco smoke from the Cafe des Lombardos from Tetuán Street.
It was a flamenco morning with the words of Eva Díaz, who continues to search for that essence, that reason for this blessed city. Memories of the faded tablaos were there. flamencos. Manuel Torre, with a handful of poets at his side, to see if inspiration would come to him and he would sing a saeta like that of Triana, so that they would wave polka-dotted handkerchiefs in the wind after maintaining the “silence, Christian people.”
We have come this far. The Virgin has entered the tower they call "El Mirador" under an impossible peal of bells. Giralda, while we have had a drink in what was Tiñoso's Tavern, in front of the Cathedral.
It has been a morning of memories and recollections, searching for Hope from the flamenco lost that Díaz Pérez collects in his brand new book, the one that we would all have liked to write.
