Sam Lardner: home
Welcome to Sam Lardner's official portal. This site reflects Sam's two professional passions: music and language. Choose directly between these two sections, or feel free to wander through the great photos and music. Above all, enjoy!
Bienvenidos al portal oficial de Sam Lardner. El portal refleja las dos pasiones profesionales de Sam: música y lenguage. Se puede elegir entre estos dos apartados profesionales o simplemente navegar para ver las fotos y escuchar la música de Sam. Sobre todo, ¡a disfrutar!
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OCTOBER NEWSLETTER: "THE TEARS OF SANTA EULALIA"
Dear friends,
The Fiestas de Barcelona have just ended, and the Fiestas de Sarrià have begun. Yowsa! One of the great benefits of living in a thousand-year-old town within a two thousand-year-old city in Catalonia is that there is no shortage of traditional fiestas. The Fiestas de Barcelona, or La Mercé, is a 10-day event featuring over 600 concerts, numerous firework displays and a dizzying list of cultural offerings all over town. The fiestas are held in honor of the Virgen de la Merced who became the patron saint of Barcelona in 1687 after Santa Eulalia, patron saint of Barcelona for the 1400 years prior to that date, was unable to stave off a locust plague from her vantage point in the heavens. What a world! Not even patron saints have total job security.
Betrayed saints do hold grudges, though. September is prone to rain in Barcelona, and this year’s Mercé was rainiest of the dozen I have experienced since moving here. Any rains that fall during La Mercé are commonly called with great local irony, the “Tears of Santa Eulalia”, shed from on high by the forever-embittered former first lady of Barcelona. Significant rains mean the cancellation or postponements of many events, most of which are scheduled out of doors, and most of which are free to the public. The result can be an administrative, economic and organizational nightmare, not to mention the bummer of missing a cool concert.
The fact is, though, Eulalia has a right to be bitter. The martyrdom of this 13-year old girl at the hands of the Romans at the end of the 3rd century is truly one for the record books. To quote George Semler in his great book, Barcelona Walks:
“Santa Eulalia became a fervent Christian to protest the corruption of the Roman Empire. When the Roman emperor Diocletian decreed in the latter part of the third century that Christians were to be persecuted, Eulalia reported to Decius, the local authority. Decius demanded that she worship Roman gods, to which Eulalia responded by throwing a handful of sand at the altar. For this she was imprisoned and subjected to thirteen progressively crueler martyrdoms: she was whipped; her flesh was torn with hooks; hot coals were applied to her feet and breasts; her wounds were treated with salt; she was scalded with boiling oil, sprinkled with molten lead, thrown into a vat of lye, rolled thirteen times down the hill now named for her in a cask of broken glass; she was thrown into a corral filled with ravenous fleas and then driven naked around town in a cart pulled by oxen. After each ordeal Santa Eulalia is reported to have slowly shaken her head, faith intact. The twelfth ordeal was the attempt by the Roman consul’s son to seduce Eulalia and convince her to recant; she remained unpersuaded. Her final ordeal was crucifixion outside the city walls in the Plaça del Pedró. Today we can only hope that much of the story of Santa Eulalia is fictitious.”
Fictitious or not, “hell hath no fury”, and in the minds of many Barcelona citizens the Tears of Santa Eulalia are a gentle reminder of their failure to honor a promise.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic, a curious discussion is taking place among the members of the North American Folk Alliance regarding the use of political messages in music and live performances. The Alliance is a fantastic forum for artists, presenters and other people related to the world of American folk music, and for many years it has been the guiding light in the direction, promotion and survival of folk music nationwide. This most recent flurry of discussion has been truly remarkable, though. The debate surrounds the appropriateness of politics in music and whether and when artists should risk offending or marginalizing part of their audience to express a political viewpoint during a show or in a recording. On one hand, artists who are trying to reach new audiences and expand their fan bases are concerned about losing people by politicizing their performances. On the other hand, many veteran artists are claiming that by clearly stating political positions, performers are more likely to gain larger and more loyal numbers of fans. The points on both sides are expressed with great tact and concern for all involved as active participants or as readers like myself, but I must say I am pretty amazed by where we are right now. Folk musicians scared of voicing their political opinions?
So with this debate raging, and only a month or so remaining until presidential election time, I am forced to do two things. First, I must honestly declare that I am not a “folk” musician in the American sense of the word. Like Russian poet and novelist Boris Pasternak, I guess I believe that each artist eventually creates the art that lies within. That art may, by nature, have nothing to do with politics. By nature and by very serious choice, my music does not have anything to do with politics, and so, well, I’m out.
That said, I will not wimp out on my friends in the Folk Alliance. In the spirit of democracy, free thought and healthy sharing of opinions, I will declare that I, who am neither a declared republican nor a democrat, am a 100% supporter of Barack Obama in these elections. He is the best presidential candidate I have seen in my lifetime by a mile. That he is black and has therefore prompted the McCain team to employ a “novelty” counterbalance in Sarah Palin is proof in my mind that, despite McCain’s noteworthy military and public career, the republican candidacy is a house of cards. That Obama is black, in addition to being a superior candidate, is important to me in that his election will bring closure to the first cycle of a process that has been grinding away throughout my entire lifetime: the fulfillment of Martin Luther King’s dream and, in direct relation, the validation of the American experiment started in 1776. I would like to emphasize the words “first cycle”.
I am sure that some of the people who have supported my career over the years and enjoy reading these letters from Barcelona will have things to say about that last paragraph. But I am also pretty sure that they are not going to drop off my mailing list. I am only one person and offer only one opinion on an issue that is important to all Americans. I welcome comments, quips and even razzing in this most important U.S. presidential election in my memory, not just for Americans but for the whole world.
Barcelona can live with the tears of Santa Eulalia and its broken promise to her. It’s only rain. But I’m not sure the U.S. can afford to continue hedging on its 232-year-old promise of democracy, freedom, progress and hope to the rest of the world.
Life, love and music to you all! Viva el debate!
Always,
Sam