less-than-a-cube

My workspace at the Chronicle is even less defined than the aforementioned (like many months afore) detestable cubes I've inhabited. I thought at one point that this was going to be a colossal problem but it's not. I mean, I would much prefer not to have my back to a walkway and my workspace wide open, but I don't feel like committing a homicide over it either. The saving grace is headphones and the type of job where I am not interrupted too often. So I listen to music loudly and crank out my work.

Today I discovered a flamenco station. A moorish/gypsy/spanish blend that comes close to the perfect definition of deep red. Instant images of watching flamenco dancers in Andalucia. More authetic than the staged variety in Madrid (we were bused up the narrow winding mountain roads to these small gypsy villages) but certainly tourist-driven. Nonetheless, they were spectacular.

The performance took place in long, narrow, cave-like rooms decorated with copper cookware. The audience sat one-deep along the white plastered walls and three or four deep at the end of the room. The guitar players and random singers sat near the opening of the room. The dancers entered the hall and began their dance three feet from the viewers—dancing shoes clicking up and down the room and stopping periodically to strike some dramatic stance. In spite of the tourist appeal, this was their town, these were their relatives and the dance and the costumes were breathtaking and erotic and nothing less than vertical foreplay.

P.S. Richard Pryor died this past week. Sweared extra the past couple of days in his honor. If there's a god up there, hope Richard Pryor has him peeing his royal robes.