I've been in Barcelona for two weeks, having emigrated from my country. Nothing is where it would be expected. Not even the apparently shared language seems to work. I don't understand anyone, no one understands me―we don't understand each other.
On one of my first underground rides, at a remote station, two striking-looking characters get on. Draculean? Gothic? Peculiar. Under the gaze of grandmothers taking care for their grandchildren and workers on their way to their jobs, one of these characters, known as Leo, makes us a promise: that, together with heavy metal and thanks to his lord Satan, they are going to save the world.
He grabs his nylon guitar, engraved with Heil Satan, and without even looking at his companion Eskul, who was already beating the box on which he kept his balance, he begins to chant, "You like bananas for the potassium."
They are Carne de Satán 1. Terrifying in appearance but extremely kind, they managed to turn looks of surprise into sympathy almost instantly. They bid farewell as they spot a guard getting on at the next stop. Suddenly, the feeling of strangeness evaporates. Strangers connect through glances and smile at each other. Now we have something in common. We understand each other, for a moment.
It was the first of many encounters with this duo of super-metalheads. Originally from Venezuela and Peru, they met in Barcelona about ten years ago to keep doing what they've done their entire lives: playing [music] and keep on playing: a solution that endures when all else fails.
From a thunderclap that bursts out of hell, rises to the skies, and falls upon the earth, they present themselves in this artistic—and life—project, with rock as their compass, and the city, or rather its underground, as their map.
Outside of public transport, you can find them enlivening various squares and alleyways in the neighbourhoods of Raval, the Gothic Quarter and El Born, playing for tips. Never in the same place and always on the move, they have become characters who―despite the city's constant touristy comings and goings, become a point of encounter for those wandering through the streets of Barcelona.
Although the sexual relation does not exist and any understanding is doomed to failure, the reading these artists offer is rather that, faced with this impossibility, one can produce one's own (personal) response to keep things going. Where the circuit, through its normalization, clearly limps, difference seems to persist in [the] contrast. Another plan is possible. Fortunately, some inventions—the ones that truly engage the subject—can extend themselves to those who let themselves be touched by them, even if just for a moment.
[1] Cf. Carne de Satán, available online: YouTube.com. I diabolically recommend his feature film Guernika does not exist, whose trailer can be found here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yrlqewTYavI .
