Expat Profiles – "Mr. Earnestly Not Hemingway", A Tale of Two Cities

A Tale of Two Cities' Bat Symbol, Austin and Valencia

I was recently interviewed for Blog Expat's series on expat bloggers. Go ahead, check it out. I know you're curious (¡Cotilla!) to know more about me, and I said more there than I have here. They frame their interviews around the theme of "from place x to place y", which in my case is from Austin, Texas to Valencia, Spain. It got me thinking, once again, of all the serendipitous parallels there are between my hometown and my adopted town... bat symbols, March madness lots of sun, approximate populations of 1 million people, and both dramatically transformed over the last 30 years.

I'm also taking this quasi-autobiographical detour, because pretty soon I hope to start a series profiling expats who've lived in Spain for a long time... Hey! All you other Spain bloggers out there! Know anyone interesting? How about you post an interview with them. (That's right, enough about you... And, no, I'm not talking about a guest post from one of your fellow bloggers. I'm talking about the interesting people you know or have met, who don't spend all their time online writing about themselves or their personal predilections.) Anyway, in the spirit of fairness, I'll first say a little about myself, a.k.a. "An Expat in Spain" —though a big fan recently re-dubbed me "Mr. Earnestly Not Hemingway"— by saying a little about my two hometowns.

It's always disconcerting, and admittedly a bit of a let down to realize that my story
is not nearly as exciting as that of hundreds of other expats out there... For example,
"From Minnesota to Hanoi: Fishsauce, Motorbikes and the golden Tortoise"...
now that's packaging!

Pretty soon the bluebonnets
will be in bloom in Texas!

Unlike Hemingway and many other expats residing here, I wasn't especially drawn to Spain, initially. (Closet confessions: when I was in college, what I really wanted to do was go to France, to live in Paris. Cliché! Sound familiar, Hemingway? The only reason Spain ended up being one of my first European destinations was because of language. Growing up in Texas, I learned Spanish, so I figured [Texanism!] it was appropriate to visit the one European country which speaks my one foreign language.) So my path to Spain is quite different from many of the other expats who blog here. I wasn't so quickly smitten by the country or the culture. I didn't drop everything to come live here for its sun, or food, or "way of life". It was accidental. Unlike Hemingway, I fell in love with and married a Spaniard (who, by the way, I didn't meet in Spain, but in a heretofore unmentioned third-party country). For me, falling in love with Spain, and especially falling in love with Valencia has been part and parcel with my having a wife and her family here who is Spanish, and who, without even trying to convince me of Spain or Valencia's elegance and beauty (they are, after all, not particularly patriotic, certainly less than me), continuously amaze me through their offhand cultural remarks or simple day trips, with the cultural richness of their city and region. A colleague of mine once said: "If you know 20 things, you think you know everything. But when you know 200 things, you know how little you know." After over a decade of coming to know this city, everyday better and better, it is only now that I know how little of its wonders I really know. I'm completely smitten.

But in Valencia, I have the "Azahar" or
orange blossom in late March, early April

Digression: My history dissertation advisor once advised me, in so many words, that... "We are all always telling stories about ourselves. All kinds of stories. The trick to succeeding at something [at that time getting a research grant] is telling a story that makes it natural to explain how you got from where you are, or where you came from, to where you want to be going." These are very wise words. We historians are professional story-tellers, but everyone tells stories. The hard part is learning how to draw upon this natural tendency for blogging story-telling, to consciously craft stories (but not fib!) about yourself and others, so as to open up new and fruitful futures. This is why historians are apt to repeat the saying, "What's past is prologue."

The funny thing is that my hometown Austin is kind of like Valencia when it comes to being passed up for other more flashy or convenient tourist destinations. (Aside: I've been egging on some travel blogger friends of mine to make Austin one of their next destinations.) Austin definitely was, for a long time, an underrated city. Though I think flashy events like South By Southwest have finally put it on the map. I've had a lot of conversations with costal Americans (i.e. Eastcoast, Westcoast) which have gone as follows:

Austin is both different from the rest
of Texas, and at the same time
_very_ Texan.

Costal person: "Where are you from?
Me: Texas. [hesitation, noting CP's anxiety] Austin, Texas. [relief on CP's face]
CP: "Austin! Oh, I've heard Austin is pretty cool! I've always wanted to visit it."
Me: "Oh, yeah? You should!"
CP: "Yeah [pause], [slowly] I would, but it's in Texas [disparaging, lamenting tone]. I don't know when I would _ever_ pass through there."
Me: [Hiding disappointment at yet another Costal person's phobia of America's center and lack of awareness of all its friendly, quirky fun.]

Maybe this is where I got that chip on my shoulder about Valencia... ah, transference. Except it's worse here because there's no excuse about Valencia being in the middle of nowhere, like one could hypothetically argue with Austin. Valencia is now only an hour and a half from Madrid by train, 3 hours from Barcelona, and less than 2-3 hours by plane from a bunch of European capitals.

Sure, George W. Bush was governor of Texas, but before him there was
biker governor Anne Richards, and since him we had the likes of Kinky Friedman
(unsuccessfully) run. Austin just recently mourned the loss of Albert "Leslie" Cochran,
a very politically active homeless transvestite, who though unsuccessfully ran
for mayor three times, was very successful in putting a spotlight on the issues
that the city's homeless faced. He She will be missed! Despite their leftist agendas,
none of these people would makes sense anywhere but Texas, and fit right in in Austin.

Anyway, the other day, as I was thinking about all this, it struck me for perhaps the umpteenth time how odd and crazy it is that both cities have for their symbol the same creature: the bat (in Spanish "murciélago"). For me, it's almost like destiny. I mean it's not like they chose a lion (England) or a bear (Madrid) or some other typical symbolic animal of power like that. Nope they both chose a flying rat the peculiar nocturnal animal, the humble bat. As it turns out, while the stories for how they elected this mammalia volans are pretty different, the principal inspiration is basically the same, there are a lot of bats flying around both cities.

Valencia's bat ("rat penat" in Valencian Catalan) iconography is steeped in tradition and colorful tales about the city's reconquest by Jaume I. Story goes that the night before he was to invade Valencia, Jaume I and his soldiers were awoken by a mysterious noise outside their tents. As it happened, just at that moment the Moorish armies were sneaking up to attack his troops while they slept. The king and his army, thus awakened by this noise, had no trouble defending against the surprise attack. Later, they determined that the noise had been made by a bat. According to this story, out of gratitude to this fortuitous nighttime visit by the animal, King Jaume I incorporated the bat into his symbol, placing it above the crown to become the city's "escudo" or seal. A less colorful explanation points to the fact that Jaume I's original seal had a dragon above it. Locals in Valencia continuously confused the dragon for a much more familiar creature, the bats that frequented the city and were beneficial to farmers in fighting off insects that would otherwise plague the crops of L'horta de València. By the 18th century, officials simply dispensed with the dragon and put a bat in its place. Whichever story you believe, the result is a lot of bat iconography around town, principally in the city's seal, but also appearing incorporated into other local institutions.

Yep, if you look up above the Ayuntamiento entrance (no, above the falleras!)
you'll see the bat over the city seal, one of many such official bats all over town.

Probably the most famous use of the bat in Valencia is in the Valencia CF soccer team's logo

Some shrubs in the shape of the Valencia seal, including the bat,
in the Río Turia near Plaza de Zaragoza.

You'll even see the bat on the utility covers on the streets of Valencia.

The bat regularly appears in Fallas. I saw it this year in this falla's light display,
the famous Convento-Jerusalén.

On the prowl for bats in the city, I found one in this street mural.
I encourage you to make a game of it. How many bat can you find in Valencia?

The story behind Austin's adoption of a bat symbol is a mixture of charming ecotourism and savvy (if also a bit commercial) marketing strategy. At some point in the late 1980s, the city powers that be realized Austin was home to the largest urban bat colony in the world – 1.5 million Mexican free-tail bats, most of whom sleep under Congress bridge downtown. And as anyone who knows Texans will know, being the largest or biggest at something is something a Texan won't let pass without being celebrated, boasted about, and transformed into a coffee mug. By the 1990s, local tourism institutions had figured out how to turn this into a tourism boon, encouraging people to visit mid March to November, especially in September when the migratory colony is largest because of a bunch of newborn baby bats. Out of this emerged a bunch of bat symbols, linked with Austin's other famous exports... Slacker (1991)-style "Keep Austin Weird" weirdness, live music, and quirky politicians of all political stripes.

This bat statue marks the area next to Congress Bridge where people line up
to watch the bats fly out at evening from under the bridge.

Why take my, or any Texans' word for it? When you can trust this banner placed
on the bridge years ago, which states definitively that this is the _largest_ (urban)
bat colony. What I don't understand is why this statement hasn't already been
 etched in bronze (or pink granite) there.

People can cruise on Town Lake to watch the bats from the river... on
boats which feature, yep, a bat.

Perhaps the most unlikely of uses of Austin's bat image is for the mascot of
the city's professional hockey team. (Hockey? In Texas? Get a rope.) Yes,
Austin's team is called the "Ice Bats", and this is their logo. Scary, or cute?

As if that coincidence weren't enough, both cities also completely transform in March. Valencia has its Fallas festival, fireworks, falla statues, and festival food, Austin its South by Southwest festival, film, music, and. Both festivals peak around the same time, March 9th through 19th, just when both cities' natural beauties, Valencia's River Turia and Austin's Greenbelt, are on the verge of blooming with full spring fever.

March Madness: Valencia has Fallas. Austin has SXSW.

Ah, yes. Austin and Valencia. My past and my future. I love you both, equally!

Speaking of Fallas... here's another mascletà video:

Wednesday's Day 14 (March 14, 2012) mascletà was pretty amazing. The pyrotechnician company is
Hermanos Caballer, one of several offshoot companies from the Caballer family,
that has a long and glorious history of great fireworks shows.
(You'll see the name Caballer a lot this week on the Fallas program.) They don't disappoint!

Valencia and Fallas in a Nutshell

"Yo que soy valenciano nativo pero criado fuera [...] y reenganchado en mi ciudad hace 27 años, siempre se la presento a los demás comparándola con Barcelona. Para mi Barcelona es como una Top-Model: espectacular, deslumbrante. Valencia sin embargo es como tu pareja: no llama tanto la atención pero está llena de belleza doméstica, de rincones entrañables, de sitios para sentirte a gusto."—Perroflauteando in comments made here

Amazing light displays like this
are going up tonight in Russafa

So it is now less than a week before the full force of Fallas hits Valencia. As of a couple of days ago, falleros all across town have started marking off their falla territory, lighting up the plaza or street corner where the falla will be on display. The churrerías street stands have been popping up here and there, ready to sell buñuelos to all the wandering visitors. And tonight is the official lighting up of all the fallas' light displays. In short, we are practically in la plantà, and by March 16th it will be Fallas, Fallas.

Hopefully many of you are packing your bags and drafting your itineraries for your visit to Valencia for the festivities. In that spirit, today I offer you a recap of all my entries on Valencia and Fallas, to orient you a bit on what to do while you're here. First, Fallas...

-----------------FALLAS, A RECAP OF POSTS-----------------

On Wednesday I saw the Day 7 mascletà for Fallas 2012, as video recorded from Calle de las Barcas.
The show was a little uneven and unorthodox, but still very entertaining.

Before I start on Valencia, let me fill you in on the remaining two The Spain Scoop entries on Fallas that I mentioned last week. You will recall that the first entry offered a glossary of terms, and the second a schedule of important dates and events. (In the interim, I discovered this wonderful webpage on the language and local vocab of Fallas.) In the third entry for The Scoop, I list some must see fallas:

        Must see fallas:

1) Nou-Campanar – Out of the way, north of the River Turia, but it usually has the biggest budget of all the fallas in the city

2) Sueca – In the Russafa neighborhood

3) Convento-Jerusalén – In the neighborhood just to the west of the North Train Station

4) Ayuntamiento – At the Plaza del Ayuntamiento

5) Na Jordana – At the edges of El Carmen next to the River Turia park 

6) La Mercé – A few blocks away from Valencia's Mercat Central

7) El Pilar – In the neighborhood to the northwest of the North Train Station, not far from the Mercat Central

        Must see light displays*:

1) Sueca

2) Cuba Literato-Azorín

*These are all right next to each other in the Russafa neighborhood, which is why you should go there at night!

Was walking home from watching the Day 7 mascletà
and saw this Fallas-themed advert for Amstel beer...
spoofing Chanel No. 5 ads, it says (transl.):
"There is an aroma that deserves to be elevated to the category
of perfume - No. 5 Masclet, Valencia." Hilarious!

These are by no means exclusive. A couple of years ago, one of my favorite Fallas, the Falla Almirante Cadarso, wasn't among these listed above. So every year you have to be sure to see as many as you can, since you never know which falla will shine the brightest. (For a more narrative account of Fallas, check out entry one and entry two of my recollections of Fallas 2010.) I also suggest some "fallas fuel", typical local foods for you to eat while you're in town and wondering the streets. You might review my post on Valencian rice dishes, and the good and bad paellas, so that you can be a discerning paella gourmand. You'll also be catching the tail end of orange season, so eat as many as you can get, or enjoy agua de Valencia! (For orange Valencianicana, including fallera imagery, check out my guest post, in Spanish, for Chic Soufflé on orange crate label advertisements.) And though it is technically not in season, you can probably find someone sells horchata, Valencia's most famous, local drink.

In the fourth entry for The Scoop, I provided a suggested daily itinerary, along with a special schedule for the final day, March 19th, when all the fallas do their cremà:

        A typical Fallas day itinerary (March 15-18):

• Early morning: Sleep in, if you can. On some days you might hear “la despertà” early in the morning, which is when the casals, in full prank mode, parade around their neighborhood at 8AM or so playing music and throwing “masclets,” hand-fireworks which sound like massive bombs when they go off.

• Around noon: Pick a central neighborhood and go for a stroll to see their fallas in the daytime. (This might be a good time to see the out-of-the-way good fallas, like Campanar or Na Jordana.) You also might get a snack (buñuelos?) so that you can make it to a late lunch.

• 2PM: Be at the Plaza del Ayuntamiento to listen to the daily mascletà

• 2:15-4PM: Lunch

• 4-6PM: Take a siesta, because... why not? You’ll want to be rested to stay out late at night when things really pick up

• 6-8PM (March 17th & 18th): Check out the “ofrenda” processions in or on their way to the Plaza de la Virgen. Listen to the music the bands play, since it’s a classic fallas soundtrack.

• 9PM: Get a sandwich (a “blanc i negre”?) for dinner so that you can be back out on the streets to take in the fallas lit up at night.

• 10-12PM (except “La nit de la cremà): Head over to Russafa to see the most impressive light displays

• 12:30-2AM (depending on the night): Line up somewhere along the River Turia to watch the "castillo" fireworks show

• 2AM onward: Continue strolling through the downtown streets? Things will be pretty active well until 4AM.

For the night of March 19th, la nit de la cremà, review the fourth post at The Scoop or my earlier Fallas teaser post where I discuss the sequence for burning fallas across town. Pick one of your favorite fallas and go there in the evening (10-12:30PM) to watch them burn. To get into the spirit of it all ahead of time, I recommend you listen to "Paquito el Xocolatero", a classic song played during Valencian festivities.

La ofrenda at the Plaza de la Virgen on March 17th and 18th

Falleros and their friends and families will be practically living at the falla,
cooking meals together such as the Valencian staple, paella valenciana

A lot of effort goes into the fallero/fallera outfits, kids too.
So the desfile (parade) to the Virgin is fun to watch

And there are all the exhibits and museums on Fallas, too:
• Museo Fallero [Official museum of the history of this festival]
• Museo del Gremio de Artistas fallero [A museum slash workshop dedicated to the artists who create the fallas]
• La Fundación Cajamurcia: "Falles de València en blanc i negre" (Temporary exhibit: until May 4, 2012) [Photo history of past Fallas]
• El Museo de la Ciudad de Valencia: "El traje de valenciana: Evolución" (Temporary exhibit: until April 30, 2012) [Exposición of past fallera outfits]

Postscript, 2012: Check out my blog entry here where I recount Fallas 2012!

Postcript, 2013: My 2013 "Before the Storm" entry on L'Exposició de Ninots and La Plantà

Postscript, 2013: Here's a guest post by Kat describing her first Fallas, Fallas 2013!

-----------------VALENCIA, WHAT TO DO AND WHERE TO DO IT-----------------

The Valencia regional flag flowing from atop La Lonja

I encourage you to review my four-part series on Valencia, to look for non-Fallas things to do here while you visit:

1) & 2) In the first two entries I provide you a walking tour of the City Center and the usual (and a few less usual) sights to see there. (When you walk by the Mercat Central, look up and you'll see the Market's Parrot, subject of many fanciful local tales.) I wrap it up with a pass through Valencia's most famous neighborhood, El Carmen, and leave you "a la luna de Valencia" just outside one of Valencia's two city gates.

A la luna de Valencia, outside the Torres de Quart gate

3) I suspect a lot of visitors to Valencia miss seeing its many hidden gems and off-the-beaten path beauty, because their guidebooks only "take a glance"at the city or focus on the usual suspects and leave out its many distinctive and colorful neighborhoods. (I wouldn't want to name names, Damian.) So if you like to see something more local, you might review my entry on Valencia's neighborhoods, port, and playas. To make your walk through El Carmen even more of a hunt, I recommend you read up on Valencia's vibrant street-art scene on my post here. (And if you spot and photograph any additions, please feel encouraged to email me them for my "Viewer's Choice" graffiti discoveries.)

While not in your tour guidebook, this picturesque fruit shop
in the Benimaclet neighborhood is famous enough
to appear in an Almodóvar movie.

4) The jewel of Valencia is its Turia Riverbed Park and all the many (dare I say "iconic"?) spectacles. This feature of Valencia, and this blog entry, are far and away my all-time favorites. So please read this (and share it with others)!

The view into the Turia Riverbed Park from the Pont del Mar pedestrian bridge.

I've also written up two different kinds of tours you can take of Valencia's architectural landmarks:

• Read my Cityscape of Valencia's architectural and urban history to discover its medieval, modernist, and present-day building history
• The Tower Tour of Valencia: Views from the Torre de Serranos, Torre de Quart, and Miguelete.

For some dining recommendations, you can read this guest post I wrote for The Spain Scoop on 5 great restaurants here. (A close friend and blogger, Chic Soufflé subsequently wrote up this great entry, in Spanish, on a variety of wonderful restaurants in Valencia.) Valencia is also a nice place to fill your shopping bags and empty your wallets. So if you like to shop, review these past posts on good places to boutique shop or typical Valencian things to buy.

• Window shopping in Valencia as described by local taste-expert Chic Soufflé
• Ceramics and Socarrats – this is _the_ Valencian (esp. Manisses and Paterna) specialty gift to buy

Hopefully you will be able to enjoy Valencia for its local foods and culture, but if you happen to be missing home, you can check out this two part entry on "hechar de menos" spots in the city for Anglo-expats: part 1 and part 2.

-----------------DAY TRIPS AND FIESTAS AROUND VALENCIA-----------------

If you come here in a car, then there are a lot of towns within a 2-hour drive from Valencia that are worth a visit. While there are many, many more, I can specifically recommend the following day trip for which I've written entries:

• El Saler & L'Albufera
• Linares de Mora
• La Vila Joiosa (guest post for The Spain Scoop)
• Peñíscola (soon to come to The Spain Scoop)
... and many others some of which I will be sure to write about soon, such as... Xátiva, Sagunt, Morella, Chulilla, Albarracín...

Regional festivals:
• Moros y cristianos, Alcoy in April (soon to come)
• La Tomatina, Buñol in August
• Festival de Langostina, Vinarós in August

Linares de Mora

This page is a work in progress. I'll return here from time to time to update it, add more linkbacks to entries on Valencia's many charms, hidden gems, and regional , with the idea that it will serve as a reference linked to from a button on the left column of the blog. So this page is my homage to the city, to its most famous festival, and to its regional splendor. My hope is that, with time, it will help convert its readers to my belief that this is an incredible place, well worth visiting for all tourists who come to Spain!

The most obvious draw for Valencia regional tourism are its many beautiful beaches,
but here below you'll also find that many of its towns are also worth a visit.

-----------------VALENCIA, FURTHER RESOURCES-----------------

There are a lot of great online resources for visitors looking to learn about Valencia and its local expat community. Here I'm going to add, for your reference, some other sites about the city that I have discovered over the years and which I think offer a nice orientation to Valencia:

• Hola Valencia Blog – Dormant, but still excellent blog on Valencia
• DolceCity Valencia [Spanish language] – A great blog on restaurants and shops around the city
• InVLC Magazine – Bimonthly magazine targeted to expat community in Valencia
• Valencia Connect – Bimonthly magazine targeted to expat community in Valencia
• 24/7 Valencia – Monthly magazine targeted to expat community in Valencia
• Agenda Urbana [Spanish Language] – Great source for all events and happenings in Valencia
• La Valencia desaparecida [Spanish Language] – A really fun blog project, posting then and now photos of places around town
• Valencia City Guide – Website in the format of a standard city tourism guide (has nice walking itineraries)
• Valencia Travel Guide – Website in the format of a standard city tourism guide (the "Valencia recipes" section impressed me despite a few possible minor discrepancies)
• Vivir Valencia [Spanish Language] – A mix between a city visitor's guide and a source for events and happenings in Valencia
• Love Valencia [Spanish Language] – A mix between a city visitor's guide and a great source for events and happenings in Valencia
• Guía de arquitectura de Valencia [Spanish Language] – Comprehensive list of buildings/sights with descriptions of their architectural features and histories.
• Benimaclet Entra [Spanish Language] – Neighborhood community website which lists the latests events and happenings in Benimaclet

-- Please email or tweet me, or comment below if you recommend any others. --
--- Thank you! ---

Epilogue to the Impertinente Curioso Entry or, why my goal should be to learn to write more concisely

"Be kind to the other readers, particularly if the blog uses inline comments - write a short comment, linked to your blog. Don't write a book, attached to somebody else's blog."—The Real Blogger Status

This picture is not particularly relevant to the post...
I just put it here because of Damian's fixation on the CAC
debate over iconic. And also because I want this to show
in feeds rather than some less iconic, non-Valencian image.

So apparently Blogger puts a limit on how much you can post in the Comments section. I learned this today because I was trying to reply to heartthrob Damian Corrigan's comments on my previous post about the Impertinente Curioso in Spain, and kept running up against a limit of 4,096 characters. It is one more sign that I need to make it my priority to learn to use brevity in this blogging world. The funny thing is that even when I try to post multiple shorter comments, blogger demurs. It's almost as if Damian's comments broke that entry's comment capacity. Apparently, Blogger puts this limit on because spammers were exploiting a weakness of the comments section where, if you put a long enough comment, it was impossible to remove the comment.

In the interest of continuing the dialogue, I encourage you all (yes, even you Damian) to post your thoughts on life, the universe, and About.com Spain Travel here. I've also decided my reply comment will have to fill my quota for the overdue post for this past Monday, since I'm busy prepping for a trip and Fallas.

...

So Damian, given that these were quite long replies from you, I'll start by thanking you for your time. (I think we are still keeping up the pretense of courtesy, right?)

I have had arguments with others online, but somehow with you I feel like holding up a mirror is the most useful way to reply… For example, why do you continually resort to dismissive personal attacks in your argument? E.g. "Should I care what you think? No." And I have never had the epithet "ignorant" lobbied at me with such frequency and incautiousness as in these exchanges. Yes, I acknowledge that I have insinuated many things about you, but thought better of saying them outright, conceding I don't know enough about you personally. With a close reading you'll notice that only twice do I really say anything directly negative about you (as opposed to your site, your statements, or "impertinente curiosos" in general). First, I more or less call you ignorant about paella. I didn't use the word "ignorant" (a poor choice of adjective if the intent is to persuade), but instead say "limited understanding". But since you insist on throwing around what is generally taken to be quite an offensive adjective, I'll stand by a statement that you are ignorant about paella. It shows in everything you write about it, and in your limited experience with it here in Valencia (one beany-paella a paella expert doth not make). It's okay. I'm ignorant about many of the things you write about. So don't take it as a personal failing. (BTW, it is "arroz a banda", with no article "la". "A banda" is Catalan for "a parte" in Spanish.) Second, I call you prideful. If other readers want to add "ignorant" to that, that is for them to say. But I think you yourself have made a pretty solid case in all these tweets and these two replies that you are proud to a fault. My only regret in pointing it out, is that to call a proud person proud is usually to throw fuel on the fire. I sincerely would like to see you change your mind and concede your mistake about Valencia. So this second affront was poor argumentation on my part.

(Though while we're on the subject of personal shortcomings, another peculiar thing about this dialogue with you is that at times I feel like I'm talking to an imperious child. You have this recurring habit of stating outright that this will be your or really "the" final word… "Against my better judgement,I have responded […] I will not do so again." "The fact that you wouldn't invite me to a VLC meeting […] invalidates your argument." Or the tweet that particularly amazed me: "No, I have a responsibility to be honest […] End." End! Full stop! Period! Who says this in an argument? And yet you keep talking and arguing. If you were so certain you had already won or made your case, why do you do continue?)

[Personal digression: This reminds me of something I learned in grad school about the often notable difference between a person's personality in person, and someone's written persona. Early on I read this academic's book, the prose were warm and inviting, the analysis thoughtful, and left you with this glowing feeling about the subject that person wrote about. But then, upon entering the program where said person taught, I was surprised to discover a cantankerous, quite rude and mean professor who was quick to tire of the students and was locally infamous for being someone best to avoid. When I mentioned this to my undergraduate advisor later, he simply laughed and said (I'm paraphrasing from memory): "Yes, it is funny how some writers/academics can have a rich and warm voice in their works, but in person are as personable as a rock." From this I learned, it is best not to judge a person's character strictly from what they write, to deduce the personal from what is generally an impersonal and affected textual medium. But perhaps blogging is a more personalized (honest?) writing form...]

Now let me say, I try not to be so flustered by an opponent's insults and attacks, even those as grandiose and unmerited as some of yours, to be incapable of appreciating his or her finer moments. So as an interlude, let me add that there are a couple of places in your replies that are real poetry and brilliance. For starters, you had me LOLing with "Mr. Earnestly Not Hemingway." Please don't be angry if I plagiarize that for future use. And the paragraph which starts with "In my travels through Spain and my time living here" was like a breath of fresh air, a pleasant relief from the general rancor and stench of your reply: 

"In my travels through Spain and my time living there, I have seen the beautiful green countryside of Northern Spain, walked from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Finisterre, seen the waves lap at the Rias from the top of the Hercules tower in A Coruna, had my aversion to Pulpo turned to a love in Santiago, seen the amazing cathedrals of Santiago, Burgos, Leon, Palencia, Salamanca, Zaragoza, Seville, Cadiz and many others, drank cider in all its forms of escanciar in Oviedo after hiking up to its Romanesque churches. I've seen the obvious and less-obvious sights in Madrid, Seville and Barcelona, had tapas and pintxos in Granada, Seville, Leon, Bilbao, San Sebastian and Logroño, seen the three faiths of Toledo, the turrets of Avila, the fairytale castle and viaduct of Segovia, the ghastly but historically important Valle de los Caidos, the Alhambra, the Roman ruins of Merida and Tarragona, etc, etc, etc."

I only wish all your travel writing on Spain was of this poetic, inspired stuff. While reading this passage, I almost heard Frank Sinatra's "My Way" playing in the background… "I've walked, from St-Jean-Pied-de-Port to Finisterre, and I did it myyy way." (Though I did notice the admission that you no longer live in Spain. How long did you live here? And how long have you been away? Because Valencia has changed _a lot_ in the last 5-10 years.)

But then you go and spoil it all by saying something stupid like… "I don't say that to gloat." (I'm sorry. Now I've got Frank Sinatra songs playing in my head.) "Gloat", what an ugly word. You put it out there claiming that you are not doing it. But me thinks he doth protest too much. Indeed, in many of your remarks it is hard not to read between the lines, and speculate as to whether your denials are in fact admissions of guilt. There are certain defenses you've drawn upon, with words like "honesty" and "responsibility", which have that —what is the word I'm looking for?— "truthiness" aspect to them, but which you repeat and repeat and repeat in a way that leads me to wonder if you're overcompensating. I think you've made clear how you "honestly" feel about these places, among them Valencia. But is that an argument beyond personal appeal? To me "honesty" here looks like pathos dressed as logos.

One issue Damian raises is what exactly About.com looks for in its Guides...
"They interact with our users daily" ... they are "a combination of passion and expertise"

Which maybe gets us to the heart of the matter. There's a moment in your avalanche of words when you use a very interesting, colorful turn of phrase: "subjective opinion". Somehow you think I'm dissatisfied because your opinion is, in my opinion, subjective. Alas, I would seek no other kind of opinion, as I eschew objective opinions, subjective facts, or all other similar sorts of deceiving paradoxes. So here it is, to be crystal clear, I am not bothered by your subjective opinion, but rather by your _bad_ opinion. Not just your bad opinion of Valencia, which started all this. But your bad opinion of people. To put it another way, your incredible negativity. And in your second reply we find a space for agreement. It has been unfair of me to take up my problem with your site on Spain with you. What can you do about your bad taste and "mala leche" (literal translation, "bad milk", but means more figuratively negativity or nastiness)? I suppose what I really want is somebody else to be writing the About.com Spain pages, and that is really something I ought to take up with whoever pays you, not with you. In that respect it has been unfair of me to bother you about it. (Mental note to self: on next spare day, look into where at About.com I can lodge a complaint about bitter, aggressive staff.)

As I've said before, if there's one thing Spain has had to deal with too much of
it's negativity from outsiders.

To know, that with all the amazing travel writers out there in Spain (I direct you to my blog rolls in the left column) who would have done both a better job on the site, and shown more grace and quality in taking critical feedback, and further, that many of them are currently seeking gainful employment… to know all this, and yet know that it is _you_ who is paid to write about Spain. Well, you are right. That is precisely what upsets me. Thank you. Now I know it is not you who has broken my heart, but rather the horrible irony of it all. I'm already on the road to recovery.

...

So reader, if you've made it this far, I really could summarize all the above with the following: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. How true!

Query: Dear (other?) readers, do any of you know how to submit a complaint about an About.com website or writer? I've run a couple of searches on About.com ("complain about staff", "customer service", "complaints about About.com"), and the one "about" I can't figure out how to find is how to log a proper complaint with About.com. Now isn't that irony? The best I could come up with was this "Contact Us" page, which seems to be directed towards advertisers. Any suggestions? (Maybe I'll write an email to questions@about.com?)

I did find this fun read on "Rude Hotel Staff"... "Too busy to be nice"
seemed relevant to my search, as did "One word: Nice" and maybe "Just no help"

Addendum: Oh my God! I just realized why Damian has been able to get away with writing such sour things about Valencia (and the rest of Spain). Everyone here (my fellow Valencians) are all outside too busy enjoying this beautiful city and its beautiful weather! Why get locked up inside long enough to reply to him? This morning I woke up, and was feeling all this negativity from his comments. I sat down to write this reply, and still felt all that negativity. But then I went for my run in the Turia Riverbed Park, and it was like rebirth. I feel much more relaxed. Now I have a new perspective on all this. For those of you who find yourselves feeling sullied by these encounters-of-the-Damian-kind, come visit Valencia! Its fair weather and beautiful parks are like a balm for troubled spirits.

The Hemingway Paradigm Is… the opinionated "Impertinente Curioso", so quick to judge

"Nothing gives more pain to Spaniards than seeing volume after volume written on themselves and their country by foreigners, who have only rapidly glanced at one-half of the subject, and that half the one of which they are the most ashamed, and consider the least worth notice."— Richard Ford, Gatherings from Spain (1846)

So every 25 entries or so (who's keeping track?) I try to reflect on the mission statement of this blog, to write about the "Hemingway paradigm" stereotypes and tendencies out there that gets tourism in Spain stuck in a rut. Today's entry is my 75th. I _was_ going to write about Washington Irving's "Tales of the Alhambra" (1832), which I became aware of thanks to Spain blogger Sangria, Sol y Siesta, and which I had planned to read since my wife and I are visiting Granada soon. But then I had a flaming Valentine's Day, providing me juicy content for an entry. No, it's not what you think. By flaming I'm referring to the social network experience of "flaming" on public forums. A couple of weeks ago, on Valentine's Day, I decided I would lobby the About.com "Spain Travel" guy Damian Corrigan on Twitter about the line on this page where he says: "First the bad news. Valencia, Spain's third biggest city, doesn't have that iconic, must-see reason to visit." And, depending on his response (which some longtime blogger-tweeple friends of mine hinted would be off-key and negative), I would commence operation shame-and-blame. In short, I thought I would try out a twitter war as an online social experiment and see what happens.

The page in question. I put it to you, do you think this is an insulting way
to characterize a city, or am I overreacting... or both?

I know what you're thinking, "This guy is a total troll" (another word I only recently learned). Even in my early blogging days I picked fights with Spanish Sabores over how "un-Spanish" a mojito is. I'm always ranting about how underappreciated Valencia is, like here on my first entry about the city, or here, in the comments where I reply to Kaley... y Mucho Más. Heck! My post on the "Paella Hall of Shame" even prompted one Spanish blogger (from Madrid, I believe) to say I was "becoming a real 'taliban' of the paella valenciana"! Why, only a few days ago I was joining the ranks with Mr. Grumpy himself, laying into Mo and others on her blog SpainStruck who celebrate Spanglish as "code-switching", when a lot of what I hear expats speaking here is more like "pidgin". So fair enough. I guess I can be a bit of a troll about "getting it right" when it comes to Spanish culture. But these were all spats with people who's opinion I respect and whose blogs I like. So all of this is silly pittance and prologue to my concerted effort to shame Damian into removing what I saw as a singularly insulting depiction of my beloved Valencia.

Did I mention that Fallas season has started? I recorded this video
of the first March mascletà yesterday. Awesome!

Damian Corrigan,
my Valentine
this year

"First the bad news..."?!? I felt this was too flippant a way to open about one of Spain's most important cities. But the reaction I got from him when I tweeted said this was so outrageous that I had to share. So today I dedicate this entry to those "Impertinente Curiosos", those outsiders/foreigners/expats out there who float through Spain, get a first bad impression, and then replicate it all over the place like a bad rumor. I won't say they are "wrong". Let's just say they do a lot of damage to local pride, and more often than not they don't _really_ know what they are talking about. Let's walk through my flaming-shaming campaign... to make this a teachable moment, as Obama once so eloquently put it. Like all social forums, there is apparently something known as "Twitter etiquette", and I definitely learned a few things from this scrape with About.com Spain...

My opening appeal

1) Lesson 1, don't start a flame war on Valentine's Day if you hope to reach anyone:

You're probably (understandably) wondering, "Does this guy have a life?" I'll plead the fifth on that. But I can say that my wife and I don't celebrate Valentine's for a couple of unarticulated reasons, but mostly because we find it cheasy (why encourage people!). (Instead we celebrate romance every other day of the year... "A very merry unbirthday to you. Yes, you!") But at first I did feel kind of bad... was I ruining Damian's Valentine's Day? Was he too busy wooing his love to put out fires started by grumpy online secret admirers? But no, alas, he also didn't have a date on Valentine's, or if he did, he must be that killjoy guy with the smart phone at the restaurant, texting away madly instead of "being there in the moment". But if he and I didn't have any special plans, everyone else did. Nobody in the twitterverse wanted to engage in sour grapes on a day for mushy hushpuppies. So even if I did have any sympathies from my followers (probably a big if), they were too busy selling love that day to sully themselves with my scurrilous cat fight.

2) Lesson 2, weapons of the weak or, in Twitter you've won if you get them to respond:
The "argument" between Go Spain and I was clearly uneven. He had something like 5000 followers on twitter, and I had around 100. His website's location in About.com also meant that he had institutional legitimacy, whereas I'm just some silly blogger with an ax to grind. I'm not going to go overboard and pitch myself as some kind of David versus Goliath, but... well, I'm just say, it wasn't a square fight. But in grad school I read a little about social movements, and had one book, James Scott's Weapons of the Weak (1985), particularly in mind. Social movements have certain tactics like "shaming" available to them, and they can use humor and their weaker position to appeal to the wider community. Moreover, I really had little to lose. Even when I started I assumed I would lose followers (amazingly I didn't), but I wasn't worried about that. Whereas I suspect Damian didn't want to alienate his readers. Indeed, one of the key characteristics of this online flaming trend is that one is anonymous... in this respect I had Damian at a disadvantage. The "right" move on his part would probably be to ignore me. This is the "social death" by way of silence. In effect I had to bait him into replying, but make sure not to alienate disinterested third parties and wayward audiences.

And he made a mistake… he did respond… [I think its a debatable point whether this was a "mistake" or not on his part. It certainly made him seem less aloof and corporate, but it also made him more human. He clearly cares about what people tweet to him, even if he does not _care_, as you will see below, about what they think or feel.]


3) Lesson 3, be prepared for a long war:
The reality is that a lot of nonsense gets published out there. And most people don't bother to say anything about it because it's just easier to ignore it. I assumed that this would be Damian's robe of power - sit through and weather whatever appeal I made, and assume I'd lose interest and give up. So you see, I had this whole plan thought out, with multiple stages to the flaming experiment: Stage 1) Appeal to Reason, Stage 2) refer to his peers and competitors, Stage 3) Reason by analogy, Stage 4) appeal to better nature. And so on. This was going to be my first flame war, and I wanted to see it through properly.

Stages 1, reason by pointing to his own words which show sightseeing worth reasons to visit Valencia,
and Stage 2, refer to his peers. I pointed him to Lonely Planet's more favorable review of Valencia,
and Travel & Leisure's estimation of the city rising. 

I had fun with Stage 3: lifting the offensive quote from Go Spain's website,
and inserting other "third biggest cities". Some of them surprised me.
(Learn something new everyday.)

4) Lesson 4, look to your natural allies:

I then sent a tweet into the void that is Twitter, directed first at my followers, and then specifically at Valencia people's twitter accounts, asking them to weigh in. And got nothing. (Review lesson number 1: don't flame on Valentine's Day.) But maybe it also says something about the "weak ties", as sociologists call them, on social networks (another name for them might be "fair-weather friends"). I suppose I could have made more of a campaign about it, by tweeting all the posts out there which celebrate Valencia as an amazing, dare I say "iconic" city to visit... like the fact, which Culture Spain posted, that the City of Arts and Sciences beat out the Prado in Madrid and La Alhambra in Granada for most visitors last year, or Mr. Grumpy listing Valencia's Fallas as one of the Seven Wonders of Spain. Even the Chicago Tribune out analogized me recently, by starting its description of Valencia off by comparing it to Paris!

I think at this point he would have just ignored me, until one blogger friend and twitter follower spoke up. Thanks Chic Soufflé for getting my back! And also indirectly The Spain Scoop for a retweet on Fallas being iconic! (I also got some belated indirect support from a couple of others, who I won't name to protect them, but thank you!)

5) Lesson 5, Try to avoid needless digressions

At some point the conversation took a turn, and we started to talk about what is meant by "iconic". (I can almost hear Alanis Morisette's song in my head, but with iconic instead of ironic: "Isn't it iconic. Like rain, falling on Spain's plains.")

Damian: "No, I have a responsibility to be honest to my readers about
where I believe tourists should and shouldn't go in Spain. End." Ouch!

"I try to believe in as many as six [iconic Valencian] things before breakfast."

Maybe I'm a little obsessed with the implications of the self-fulfilling prophecy,
but I feel like it's Spain's worst enemy at the moment.

How did he get the idea that I'm a citizen of Valencia? If only!

6) Lesson 6, let the other side dig his own grave:

As I said, I think other people weighing in got GoSpain's attention. Note his reply to Chic Soufflé: "If you think that is negative, you should see... [Worst Cities in Spain] My job is to differentiate and highlight what I like." I suppose this is his way of trying to show magnanimity and deference. I can't speak for Chic Soufflé, but it strikes me as absurd. Have you looked at the cities on his site he recommends people _not_ visit?: 1) Gibraltar, 2) Málaga, 3) Valladolid, 4) Marbella, 5) Algeciras, 6) Ciudad Real, 7) Huelva, 8) Albacete. Now I haven't been to any of these, so I'm not in a position to judge. But it strikes me as a bad business model for travel advice to categorically dismiss towns like these. I just had friends visit Valladolid, and liked it, and I've been meaning to go there for a while to see its film festival, one of the oldest in Spain. (I invite you, the reader, to make an argument for any of the others.)

"Get over yourself and your city, please!" Suggestion to all: don't use unnecessary
personal attacks when arguing with people online. If you don't know them,
it's better to give them the benefit of the doubt. Here he also writes to Chic Soufflé:
"If you think that is negative, you should see... My job is to differentiate and highlight what I like."

His concession that he at least did not put Valencia on this list is, well, weak. Here he falls into a common trap for travel writers: vanity, that he has the ultimate authority, judgment, and say in what is "worth it" and what is not. If he told his audience to flat out avoid Valencia, that it was not "worth it", his readers would know that he has no impartiality or taste whatsoever. This is because the subjects one chooses for travel writing make the writer as much as the writer makes the subject. This was something that Hemingway understood well. He helped to make Pamplona iconic, because of his amazing vivid prose. But he knew that it was Pamplona speaking through him, not just him alone...

I should add that at some point in all this he went private... sending me private messages on Twitter rather than public ones. In both public and private, he wasn't above ad hominem (personal) attacks. (Class, it is now time to review the twitter rule: If you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all.) At one point he flattered me by mistaking me for a Valencian citizen. Funny how personal attacks can say as much or more about those who lobby them than those they're lobbied at. He clearly didn't take the time to look at my blog and read up about me, before rushing to judgment about what I was saying.

"High minded Valencians". This is a new one for me. Usually Valencians
are accused of provincialism. I think he really thought I was from Valencia. Suggestion #2:
Read up a bit on the person you are smearing. My "About" states very clearly that I'm American.

7) Lesson 7, Twitter and Blogging work best when everyone keeps it positive:

Now at some point in Day 2 (February 15th) I lost my drive. And I can tell you exactly when it happened. I was checking the link he sent Chic Soufflé on cities _not_ to visit... And then he went there… The featured entry on his site for Wednesday was "Paella". Yes, paella, my weak spot. Needless to say I couldn't resist checking what he put up, and offering corrections. 

This had to be baiting me, or some kind of indirect concession to my argument
that Paella is one thing that is Valencian and iconic.

As it turned out it, his entry had a lot of good information, though mixed in with some real fallacious bombs. I was pleased to see him get right the fact that "paella valenciana" doesn't have seafood in it. And the extra line about how to pronounce it correctly. Kudoos! His picture had the red peppers in it, the hallmark of a Castellon paella rather than the traditional Valencia one, but that's nitpicking. But the page also had some serious misinformation. The big one that stood out for me was "paella negra". What the f...? I pointed this out to him, that no local I've ever known has called "arroz negro" "paella", even though it is a paella. To which he responded that there were sites online that did say this. (I also pointed out that "fideuà" is _not_ called paella, ever. This he accepted easily, and changed immediately.)

The "jihad" against paella misinformation: paella (de) marisco,
paella negra arroz negro, paella fideus fideuà... Argg!

In good faith, I ran a google search on paella negra, and sure enough Wikipedia itself appeared among the links that show for "paella negra". But wait, Wikipedia English! So I did what I always do when I have doubts about what I see written on Spain in Wikipedia, I clicked the tab on the left for Español and Català... and sure enough, no mention whatsoever of paella negra. (Hint, hint: because locals don't call it that.) I pointed this discrepancy out to GoSpain on twitter, and he relented.

Open to reasoning, when the evidence is overwhelming.

And here I started to have that change of heart. I realized, he's doing his best with the limited knowledge and indirect exposure that he has. (Okay, so I also lost interest. I'm sure many of you are already thinking: there have got to be better ways to spend one's time than yelling at internet walls.) Perhaps the humble lesson I had realized was that I, too, can be an online impertinente curioso, quick to judge without taking time to understand. Once I sat down and looked through his site, I realized a lot of work had gone into. Don't confuse this for a recommendation. "I have a responsibility to my readers to direct them to good sources of information on Spain..." Forgive my vanity, but you'll still learn more from my Valencian rice entry, than his paella page... he fails to discuss arroz al horno, arroz meloso... In short, his site offers pretty standard and often cursory info, and can be misleading and biased by its authors limited understanding of the subjects he tackles.

His site suffers that common weakness of all writing about Spain by an outsider who only partially understands what he is seeing. He makes many mistakes, like the paella/rice mistake, which a local would _never_ make. Again, I don't see this as a personality flaw. I also make mistakes on my entries, which my wife or in-laws catch, or which my local friends or readers point out to me. There is a vast difference in knowing a city because you've read up on it online versus knowing a city because you've lived and breathed it your entire life. (Indeed, one of the wisest things my older sister once told me was that you don't really know a person until you've been with them through all four seasons of the year.) Locals can also miss things in their own city, but many of the mistakes we expats and outsiders make would leap off the page to them.

"He can be taught!" The About.com Go Spain page on Paella after Damian incorporated my suggestions.

8) Lesson 8, Stop using Wikipedia as a source but then writing like you know what you're talking about

Of course, maybe the real question is what has been the fallout from all this. For one, I'm pleased to say he updated his Paella entry removing the errors I pointed out to him. I also took the opportunity to create a Wikipedia account, and I edited the English entry so that Anglophone Hispanophiles wouldn't continue replicated that mistaken notion of calling "arroz negro" "paella negra". [Let this be a lesson to all of you Spain bloggers out there: when doing your online research for entries, take the extra step of seeing if the Wikipedia entry is different in Spanish (or Catalan) than in English. This is a _big_ clue about the pages' sources of (mis)information.]

That's the good news. The bad news is he has not (as of the posting of this entry) changed the page on "Things to Do in Valencia". I suspect Damian is a proud man, perhaps inflexibly so, and my campaign might have further ossified his opinion of the city and that page's depiction of it. -Sigh-. What's a Valencia lover to do? I'd tell you and other readers to boycott the page, but I doubt I have the kind of internet influence to have much of an impact on his online traffic. -Sigh-.

Even Wikipedia makes mistakes! Here the "arròs negre" entry in English
before I went in and edited it.

My first wikipedia edit... Brave New World!

And, of course, in a way "All news is good news" in the Twitterverse (or at least that's what this web article says about flaming). By tweeting left and right to him, I was giving him free advertising. And likewise, by responding to me he put my name on his readers' radar. So I suppose I should thank him for that. A major fallout was that I picked up some new followers, a couple of which sent me sympathetic tweets. (I'm not Damian's first broken heart.) All of this inspired me to add a new gadget on the left side of this blog: a Twitter window where you can see my lastest tweets. Clearly I'm spending too much time on Twitter, so I may as well share that with you here, too.

And, please, if you ever read anything here that rubs you wrong, don't be afraid to tweet me (or email)... heck, I'd even enjoy a good flaming, if it's for a just cause. ;-)