flaneur

Typing away in La Biblioteca Nacional, natch, it crosses my mind that we are but the descendents of the flaneurs, the benjamins and their ilk. The attendants walk past, hands behind their backs. Green folders with papers from Zamora, Zaragoza, Valladolid. That unequivocal madrid light invading the walnut hues and parquet floor, dictating tone. Machines for capturing the retina. Ten hanging lamps, dropping twenty metres from the cieling to annoint the desk clerks. Cataluña, Castilla-Leon, Cantabria. The wealth of a culture incarcerated in a few folders. Downstairs, a picture of Borges, looking unsympathetically opaque.