If instead of taking so many photos with their cell phones and looking at the nativity scene with both interest and resignation, the public closed their eyes, they would imagine that Plaza Sant Jaume reeks of excrement and fish. From the excrement that comes from the pellets of the flocks and flocks of sheep that appear in it, not counting the most generous depositions of the donkey and the cow, which we already know how cows spend with their ozone layer killer farts. And the fish? Why so much fish and fishmongers? Is it a tribute to the four and a half boats that still catch four fish, well seasoned with state-of-the-art microplastics?
But let’s get back to the silly topic (sorry!) at the beginning. In the lower left, a girl defecates; She is the shitter. We know this, not because of her pestilence, but because they have put her in the least showy part of the stage. Maybe to respect her privacy. These tasks are best done with a small audience. We also know that she is pregnant because she reads. If you do minor waters, you don’t bother reading. That she is a girl and not a boy raises questions in us that we avoid answering. And the fact that she reads while evacuating gives us ideas about the quality of many publications, thoughts that we will let disappear when we flush the toilet. And the fact that she poops is confirmed by the fact that her uncle accompanies her closely, silent and supportive, and wrapped in a blanket, as he should. Both are companions of fatigue and (perhaps) hemorrhoids. We Catalans like eschatological things.
About Pepe, Mari and Chus, we have nothing to say. They are handsome. And about the Angel of the Annunciation, we will only comment that from now on we will not look at the same way as the workers who come down to clean the windows of the building where the La Vanguardia editorial office is located. We thought they were spies from the competition who were photographing the exclusives – few – of the next day… and no. The LGTBIQ (I don’t think we left out any acronym) are also at the extremes: two girls kissing and two boys half hugging and looking in love, while holding some balloons that become a symbol of the other balloons, the ones that They fit into penises. We think about it because International AIDS Day is celebrated in the square.
The Three Chimneys of Besòs are the bodyguards of the real kings, the Magi, who do not need any Constitution to endorse them. There’s also the mother, all fucking day in the kitchen cooking so we can lick our fingers. And next to him, a man who looks like a broker with an apron, who has left work early because today (one day is one day!) He will make dinner. Surely the farmers’ union and the merchants, with so many stalls in the nativity scene, have contributed some money for the assembly. Barcelona looks like Alcarràs. There is even a woman who drives a tractor, a vehicle that, as everyone knows, clogs the streets of the capital every day.
Two more ideas. On the stage of this theater of life that this nativity scene wants to be, the oldest are the ones who work the hardest. So they can say that they are leeches on the public treasury. Second idea; Women work more than men, a reflection of reality. And a third, although we said there would be two. There are sheep, dogs, a cow… But we miss the wild boars, which are already a native species in many neighborhoods… along with the tourists. At the next nativity scene?
The nativity scene set up this year in Plaza Sant Jaume is the biggest attack against Christmas ever perpetrated in Barcelona. One could expect it from the progressives ashamed of the Christian roots of this society, from the common people who always preferred to congratulate the winter solstice and celebrate any Mayan rite instead of approaching a Catholic mass. But from a socialist mayor, from what is basically understood as a leader of order, from a supposed pillar of the prevailing way of life, that of the majority of the people…
In the end it was not Ada Colau who stole Christmas from us, it was Jaume Collboni. Municipal sources assure off the record that he had no choice, that if we were aware of the options that the new executive had on the table we would not complain in any way. But we must ask a leader for arrests and arrests, to inspire us with his courage and determination, to roll up his sleeves and make difficult, risky and complicated decisions. Let’s see, who would think of putting a nativity scene in Plaça Sant Jaume that can be understood at first glance?
There they are, completely identifiable, the Three Wise Men, the Virgin Mary, Saint Joseph, the baby Jesus, the little shepherds of the nose… it even presents a figure presumably pooping! Where are those heads in glass balls that scared the children? And that damn supposedly interactive hologram that was more reminiscent of Donkey Kong games?
The main and most shared Christmas tradition of 21st century Barcelona consists of approaching Plaza Sant Jaume, contemplating the manger set up by the City Council and saying that you don’t understand a thing, that when you were little they did put up beautiful mangers, that It is very easy to spend the taxpayer’s money in any way. How much did this nonsense cost? In the private company would I want to see them? And in this way you find men of advanced age who contemplate the assembly as if they were in front of the works of Glòries, modern men with crooked smiles who understand an atrocity of design exuding cruel ironies and terrible sarcasms, parents covering the eyes of their children, telling them no. It’s okay, honey, they’ll return home right away and set up a nativity scene with a river with Albal paper.
Because the Barcelonan is largely an indignant citizen. In New York, for example, people assume that he lives in the jungle, and his main objective is to survive another day. But the Barcelonan is fully aware of what the city where he lives must be, and that existential traffic light leads him inexorably to frustration. The best way to convey this anger and stop heartburn is public complaint. People have the right to put public administration to work. How on earth can the City Council take this escape valve away from us. What do we do now with so much bile accumulated in the esophagus. Furthermore, the cut-out manger had already been invented. This year’s does not in any way surpass that of 2004, that of the butanero. Let’s hope that at least they have the decency to play a Christmas carol in the sheds of Plaza Catalunya.
