Presentation of “La Cuesta de Moyano”

Tales from the streets of Madrid - Part I*

The small white Seat parks in front of my stand. Right behind the driver’s door there is a round sticker from the NASA, towards the rear a gigantic dent. Out comes Patxi, a tall and almost bald, middle-aged guy, wearing shirt and a thin black tie with a small tight knot. With a few energetic steps he approaches my board loaded with second hand books, greeting me with his usual broad smile. While his hands and eyes are actively searching, I receive a kind of verbal raid, a heavy monologue built like practically one long sentence without full stops.
“No no, this Pope is definitely not ordained by God; Lefebvre is right, yes he is; the Second Vatican Council eliminated the spirit of the Church; terrible, terrible and look around, nobody is aware of it. But thanks to the providence I have found the place, here in Madrid, where Mass is still celebrated in Latin.”
After entering in more symptoms for the decadence of the Roman Catholic Church, Patxi wish to pay the three books he has chosen; he is bargaining a bit, but only for the game, it is obvious that today he has money and comes to have the mayor kick of most bibliophiles; the activity superior to reading: buying books.

My client continues screening our present offer, while the Spanish word stream with the characteristic singing Basque accent continues: “...no more honor and dignity in the army, well not even in the Legion any more. I offered my services but they did not take me because I only obey orders in line with my own principles. Yes, yes my friend, I am a man of firm values. Nowadays soldiers are only mercenaries without principles... so in these conditions I can not be a soldier, but I am life-guard.” Quickly he shows me the card documenting it. Whether it is in the local swimming pool or in some more exotic sense, I did not catch it because the “life-guard” subject was immediately swallowed by the following one.

Again he wants me to charge him the 10-15 euros for the next few books, and the show goes on: “Two meteors will come, two; destroying this sick civilization; we will return to the Stone Age, the only knowledge remaining is the one in the printed books. I am choosing selected books that contain the secret knowledge, then I will leave my personal library in a bunker; this will be my legacy to those dark ages to come...”

We are at “La Cuesta de Moyano” in Madrid, the biggest year-round daily market of second hand books in Europe; the summer like weather is typical for September in the Spanish capital. It is eleven thirty in the morning on a normal Wednesday.

Working on the street, expose you to a broad range of different characters both from the city itself, and in the case of Metropolises from all over the world. This is true independently of your occupation, but in high degree if you are selling something on exactly the same site every day of the year, and the panorama gets even heavier when the products sold are second hand books.

In spite of his suspicious opinions and the fact of being so open with them, Patxi is a nice fellow; I would say he is only slightly more nuts than the average. He is always extremely polite, never stays too long, and he even buys books from time. But still, I never gave him my personal mobile number when he repeatedly was asking for it, and it is very little probable that I will read a book inspired by his recommendations.

Only by varying the few parameters regarded in my last paragraph, we get a bunch of different characters, and as you, my dear reader, probably already has guessed, you will have rich occasion to meat them all in the chapters that will follow in the Tales from the streets of Madrid.

To respect the personal space, I have changed all the names, except the name of the King and of the Heroes. For me a King is not necessary one with a crown, and his power might be fairly limited, but he posses a doubtless authority; respected or hated but everybody knowing him are aware of the weight of his actions.
A King is a public character; no need to hide his name.

Finally, regarding the identity of a Hero: It might not be obvious for everyone knowing him**, but his authority is transcendental. When the time comes, I would like to discuss in more details what these words signify for me.

footnotes:
* All the Tales from the streets of Madrid are dedicated to JM, close friend of mine.
The tales have been maturing in my mind for almost six years by now, but it is mainly thanks to him that I finally begun to write them down.

** Most Indo-European languages require specification of the gender when using pronouns in third person singular . Every time I write "he" I mean “he/she”, and the reason is not to be politically correct: Several of the few heroes I have met personally in my life were women. I refuse to write "he/she" because of the clumsy visual aspect.

The metaphor of “crystallization”

(Scientific metaphors in everyday language - Part I)

In his now classic work “Metaphors we live by”, George Lakoff has awakened the general awareness regarding how much our linguistic landscape is under the influence of experiences from the physical world; As the start shoot for this blog I will analyze metaphors from natural sciences widely used in modern language. In the present entry that of “crystallization”, an excellent metaphor in the concept-complex of “expressing-ordering-creating”. In a later entry I will look on the metaphor of “DNA” used as picture related to ideas around “coding-control”; a usage in fashion nowadays in the business world, but in my opinion extremely problematic.
Let us start then with the goodie, the world and idea of “crystallization”.

First of all we must have it clear: the crystal is not a practical metaphor of “perfection”. This idea is mainly spread by New Age shops filled with purple smoke and by crappy science fiction B movies from the seventies. Those who have tried to search for real crystals in their original environment, smashing rocks with hammer in a quarry and getting dirt under the nails, know that most crystals in nature are very far from perfect. It’s pretty seldom to find crystals like the idealized ones on textbook drawings. (and new age shop windows) Usually the grows of crystals is unequal in different directions, and they are often intergrown with their neighbor crystals, the visible faces and edges presenting a mess of small shining plates; The identification of the forms present being a complex puzzle, a challenging mental exercise. Similar considerations apply to the inner structure, the crystal lattice. To summarize, crystals are full of imperfections, both outside and inside, hence the world “crystal” is not more apt as metaphor for “perfection” as the words “raindrop” or “cow”.

What could it then be used for, the concept of the crystal?
Well, to illustrate ORDER, and the process of crystallization express “ordering according to a principle”.

The atoms and molecules in a liquid solution, for example a glass or salty water move up and down and in all directions in a highly chaotic manner. During the process of crystallization the matter is organized in a concrete solid structure determined by the nature of the materials involved and by external conditions such as temperature, pressure, time available etc. As indicated above, the result of the ordering will never be perfect, but compared to the initial state, i.e. the liquid solution, it is absolutely meaning- and powerful to talk about the crystallization as creation of order.

In a mental dimension the liquid solution corresponds to a state where all kind of ideas and associations flow around freely in the space of our consciousness. During “crystallization” the ideas in turbulence are settled down to form a concrete argumentation, a stable plan of actions, that is something solid enough to be exported from our mind, to be communicated for others.

I would say the analogy to organic growth, such as that of germination of a seed or the development of a fetus, is much weaker. These processes need constant metabolism, i.e. exchange of energy/matter with the outer world; while both in physical and mental crystallization the potential result is already there, it is just a question of ordering the elements present to reach solidification. Note that crystallization can happen very suddenly in an oversaturated solution – just like the sudden grasp of an idea.

I will conclude that the physical process of crystallization is an enriching metaphor for the mental process of settling ideas because 1) the physical process has a clear interpretation 2) there is a meaningful analogy between the two processes even if they are in totally different areas.

In a later entry I will show why this is not the case for use of “DNA” as metaphor for coding and control. (=>HERE)