Bunuel_Luis_My_Last_Breath

to Lenin and Trotsky. The only political discussions I participatedin~and they may have been the only ones in Madrid!-took placeat the peiia of the Cafe de Platerias on the Calle Mayor.A petia is a kind of meeting that takes place regularly in certaincafes; it's a tradition that's played a major role in Spanish life, andnot only for the literati. People meet according to their profession,and always in the same place, from three to five in the afternoon, orafter nine in the evening. A standard peiia consists of anywhere fromeight to fifteen regulars, all of whom are men. (The first womenappeared in the early 19305, and their reputations suffered accordingly.)In the political pefia at the Cafe de Platenas, you might meetSam Blancat, for example, an anarchist from Aragon who wrote fora variety of journals, such as Espatia Nuwa. His articles were sonotoriously extreme that he was automatically arrested the day afterany assassination. Then there was Santolaria, who edited a journalwith anarchist leanings in Sevilla. There was also Eugenio d'Ors, andthe bizarre, magnificent poet Pedro Gartias, who could spend twoweeks looking for the right adjective."So. . . your adjective?" I used ro ask whenever we met. "Haveyou found it yet?""Still looking," he'd reply dreamily, before drifting off.I can still recite one of his poems by heart. It's called "Peregrino"and is part of a collection entitled Bajo el ah del sur~Under theWing of the South:Fhian horizontes de sus ojosT~aia rumor de arenas en los deaosY un haz de suenos mtosSobre sus hcmbros t&u/osLa mntaiia y el mar sus dos lebrelesLe saltaban al pasoLa mntatia asombraah, el mar encabritado. . . . **Horizons flow from his eyes / He brings the sound of sands between fingers / And abouquet of broken dreams / On his trembling shoulders 1 Mountain and sea, his two hounds,/ Leap when he passes, 1 The marveling mountain, the unyielding sea . .