To Honor the Dead

After tomorrow, the rest of my trip here is just wandering. I can hardly think what to write about today. I rolled out early in order to take the bus trip up to San Lorenzo, the little town that is home to El Escorial. After moving the capital of Spain to Madrid in the 1560s, the very wealthy and staunchly religious Philip II started looking around for a place to build a monastic retreat and family burial vault. He was important, so the place where his family would rest for years to come had to match his grandeur. It does. El Escorial is a gray, granite giant with family rooms, a cloister for Heronimite monks, a huge church with a dome based on that at St. Peter´s in Rome, and the royal family vaults. In a granite and jaspar vault deep under the alter in the church, all the kings and queens of Spain since Charles V (Phil´s dad) have been shelved in chronological order. Moreover, all their kids and family members--150 or so in all--are likewise buried in adjacent vaults.

Now, here´s the source of my elation. The monastery has one of the finest collections of manuscript books in the world. It contains Europe´s earliest copy of the Koran, an original copy of the Islamic legal codex from the 700s, AND it contains two of the four original copies of Alphonso "El Sabio´s" Cantigas de Santa Maria! If you have read this blog at all, you know my admiration (veneration) for these great works of poetry and music (click on the link to Cantiga´s music). After 45 minutes of wrangling with various docents and guards, I was shown to the monk´s quarters where I was able to speak with José Luís de Vallé, the head librarian. I gave him my card. I pleaded. I reasoned. I begged! Finally, he agreed to give me exactly one hour with both copies in the monastic reading room tomorrow beginning at 10:00. I can´t bring a camera or a bag. I may have paper and one pencil. Sound the bells throughout the Metroplex!

Later that afternoon, having risen from my sobs of joyful expectation, I rode the bus from San Lorenzo to El Calle de los Caidos--The Valley of the Fallen. This is Franco´s El Escorial. Located in the Guadarrama Mountains, this is the monument to Spain´s war dead from the civil war of the 1930s. In the 1940s, when José Rivera (the founder of Franco´s fascist Falange party) died, Franco laid his mentor´s body to rest in El Escorial. This caused a national uproar--not only was Rivera not royal, he had opposed the king. Partially of spite then, Franco built this cavernous mounment a couple of valleys over from El Escorial. His original intent was to honor only the dead on his side; again, a national outcry caused him to allow both sides to be honored--thus the title, Valley of the "Fallen." On top of an outcropping called the Rock of Nava, they built a 500 foot-tall cross decorated with giant statues of war dead and the four Apostles. Into the literal side of the mountain, they dug a great cathedral--an elongated, banded-in-granite tube that flairs out into the shape of a cross. On entering, I felt like I had wandered onto the set of Lord of the Rings. Gargantuan statues in a combination of neo-Gothic and art deco guarded the entrance. The a stone leviathan of a tortured Christ lay twisted above the yawning doors of the cathedral. The enormity of the thing consumes you--yes, Lloyd, you feel like somewhere in a corner, there should be a small man behind a curtain saying, "I AM THE GREAT AND POWERFUL OOOZZZZZZ!"

The Valley of the Fallen still causes quite a stir. Many in the government want the place closed down. Rivera lies at rest right in front of the alter, and Franco is buried in a crypt behind the alter and the place is indelibly associated with his, now unpopular, cause. We have the same problem of political correctness associated with anything honoring the Southern Cause for our own Civil War. Well, let them argue; it´s still the most powerful war memorial I have ever visited.

But who cares about war. All I can think of is tomorrow and sublime music.

CORRECTION: In yesterday´s blog, I mentioned only having been to one strip joint. The truth is that some few years ago, to honor another unnamed friend´s (J**f) forthcoming nuptials, M**K and I went to the Sapphire Club in Las Vegas--the self-advertised "Largest Strip Club in the World" (hey, it´s Las Vegas). For the record, we stayed just about 40 minutes.