STEPFORD CATHOLICS "So where do you think they are all going" my husband asks for the umpteenth time "I mean where? And what for?. I mean some of 'em seem to br carrying their shopping!. Are they shopping!" We are sitting outside a Bodega, at the apex of two narrow streets in Seville at two in the morning, in this week of Semana Santa drinking Jamaican Rum, talking, talking, as the People walk down towards us, veer around the table where we sit, and up to our right. A surging and ebbing sea of souls increasing in speed and mass as the night lengthens. We, he and I, absorbed in our habitual never ending conversation give scant attention to what we have observed for hours, days, nights now in Seville, until the dark energy in the mass of people jerk us from our cocoon, our rum fuelled talk. . "Not going anywhere" I murmur , "Processing. They are in Procession after some...some Totem Pole, some standard bearing Priestly One long gone by. Massing. Mindless. Stepford. Stepford Catholics."
A LITTLE KU KLUX KLAN We arrived in Seville as Semana Santa, the Spanish holy week, kicked off. We knew we'd witness all that jazz, but really didn't know at all. It's sum of parts, a mystery.. We schlepped around in the light and heat of day, doing holiday things, remarking on the people out on the streets, the women in lace mantillas headdress, the frocks of formal black short enough for showing of elegant leg, arm in arm with the sharply suited men. They glide in and out of churches, walking, walking , always on the move. They mingle with the pointy hated Nazarenos, (Capirotes) cloaked from head to toe, sinister in the cone like hat with slits for eyes to see, obscuring the face. A little Ku Klux Klan. A little carnival. All day Tuesday, Wednesday, we watch the smiling people. At midday they gather at the Bodegas for beers in the sun before or after observances. We are charmed, yes, and only slightly discommoded by the crowds.
SHAKE ROLL AND SHIMMY It is for us a series of vivid visuals adding up to something only these cool and fined boned people understand. We are content to marvel at its stately unhurried progress, the richness of the costumes concealing the sex even of the wearer; a little unsettled on coming on the silent lines of of faceless Nazarenos in Procession as the evening wore on; a little melancholy at the dolorous brass band play: astonished and giggling at a large square float carrying effigies of Christ on the cross and Mary the Virgin. The float is supported and propelled underneath by unseen Spanish men. We get this, as we see it bopping at the entrance to one of the myriad churches as plentiful as pubs in Ireland, watched by a tense expectant crowd. The thing dips sharply and slowly slowly enters under the ancient arch. " Oh hey, they have to get it in! they must be on their hunkers. No! no,! on their knees! to get that great edifice under the broad stretch of the arch". The crowd roar triumphantly as the the float shimmies monstrously into the dark space beyond.
GET ME ANOTHER RUM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD And so to Thursday, Maundy Thursday and the early hours of Friday. The massing crowd, marching now in increasing urgency, children among them, till they flowed behind and before us on their way. I ask my husband to get me one more rum for the love of God, disturbed. unnerved. .
NEVER SAY FOREVER DONE "It was a procession babes!" I assure him, later. "I looked the whole thing up on the internet!. The Counsel of Trent, you know, dreamed up the entire thing. to draw in the People" It was Good Friday evening, Christ crucified at three o'clock, and the people fallen away. " I guess we just don't do it any more in Ireland, not really, no, never did this version anyway, but still here...I mean what about the paedophile priests?, the affluence?.... but..but you know when we did do it, we did it good and dark and now we are forever done.
CALVARY And so we go home to Ireland and off to see the film Calvary on Easter Sunday night, and hey we have our holy week anyway. It was a flaying, shattering heartbreaker of a movie. Christ was good and agonised, condemned, tortured, abandoned, and nailed to the cross, in all terrible beauty. It's cast of unforgettables, Developer, Publican, Doctor, Guard, Lost woman, Suicide, Widow, Murderer, Priest, snatched you up and squeezed you relentless for it's duration.. The people cynical braying victims, flagellating church, state and bankers, shapeshifting into the mass, blame shifting the despoiling of children onto to the priests. Until, finally, the sweet and exotic concept of forgiveness. We are where we are. God in art.
GOD IN ART. GOD IN THE PEOPLE. In Spain I saw him, God. The people laughing, drinking beer in the sun, taking photos on mobile phones of their little lollipop sucking infants, cutely got up in miniature priestly robes."Look! To me! Look!. look to me!, Angel." Elegant, joyous. God in the people. I saw the massing mindless power the church had chained, as here in Ireland, Calvary, the unchained lost, the haters mocking, despoiling what had been venerated and gladly given steam. On Easter Sunday night at Calvary, God was. Go figure. God in art. God in the people.
A LITTLE KU KLUX KLAN We arrived in Seville as Semana Santa, the Spanish holy week, kicked off. We knew we'd witness all that jazz, but really didn't know at all. It's sum of parts, a mystery.. We schlepped around in the light and heat of day, doing holiday things, remarking on the people out on the streets, the women in lace mantillas headdress, the frocks of formal black short enough for showing of elegant leg, arm in arm with the sharply suited men. They glide in and out of churches, walking, walking , always on the move. They mingle with the pointy hated Nazarenos, (Capirotes) cloaked from head to toe, sinister in the cone like hat with slits for eyes to see, obscuring the face. A little Ku Klux Klan. A little carnival. All day Tuesday, Wednesday, we watch the smiling people. At midday they gather at the Bodegas for beers in the sun before or after observances. We are charmed, yes, and only slightly discommoded by the crowds.
SHAKE ROLL AND SHIMMY It is for us a series of vivid visuals adding up to something only these cool and fined boned people understand. We are content to marvel at its stately unhurried progress, the richness of the costumes concealing the sex even of the wearer; a little unsettled on coming on the silent lines of of faceless Nazarenos in Procession as the evening wore on; a little melancholy at the dolorous brass band play: astonished and giggling at a large square float carrying effigies of Christ on the cross and Mary the Virgin. The float is supported and propelled underneath by unseen Spanish men. We get this, as we see it bopping at the entrance to one of the myriad churches as plentiful as pubs in Ireland, watched by a tense expectant crowd. The thing dips sharply and slowly slowly enters under the ancient arch. " Oh hey, they have to get it in! they must be on their hunkers. No! no,! on their knees! to get that great edifice under the broad stretch of the arch". The crowd roar triumphantly as the the float shimmies monstrously into the dark space beyond.
GET ME ANOTHER RUM FOR THE LOVE OF GOD And so to Thursday, Maundy Thursday and the early hours of Friday. The massing crowd, marching now in increasing urgency, children among them, till they flowed behind and before us on their way. I ask my husband to get me one more rum for the love of God, disturbed. unnerved. .
NEVER SAY FOREVER DONE "It was a procession babes!" I assure him, later. "I looked the whole thing up on the internet!. The Counsel of Trent, you know, dreamed up the entire thing. to draw in the People" It was Good Friday evening, Christ crucified at three o'clock, and the people fallen away. " I guess we just don't do it any more in Ireland, not really, no, never did this version anyway, but still here...I mean what about the paedophile priests?, the affluence?.... but..but you know when we did do it, we did it good and dark and now we are forever done.
CALVARY And so we go home to Ireland and off to see the film Calvary on Easter Sunday night, and hey we have our holy week anyway. It was a flaying, shattering heartbreaker of a movie. Christ was good and agonised, condemned, tortured, abandoned, and nailed to the cross, in all terrible beauty. It's cast of unforgettables, Developer, Publican, Doctor, Guard, Lost woman, Suicide, Widow, Murderer, Priest, snatched you up and squeezed you relentless for it's duration.. The people cynical braying victims, flagellating church, state and bankers, shapeshifting into the mass, blame shifting the despoiling of children onto to the priests. Until, finally, the sweet and exotic concept of forgiveness. We are where we are. God in art.
GOD IN ART. GOD IN THE PEOPLE. In Spain I saw him, God. The people laughing, drinking beer in the sun, taking photos on mobile phones of their little lollipop sucking infants, cutely got up in miniature priestly robes."Look! To me! Look!. look to me!, Angel." Elegant, joyous. God in the people. I saw the massing mindless power the church had chained, as here in Ireland, Calvary, the unchained lost, the haters mocking, despoiling what had been venerated and gladly given steam. On Easter Sunday night at Calvary, God was. Go figure. God in art. God in the people.
No comments:
Post a Comment