Whilst sipping a pint of de Koninck at about 1:00am in Croxley’s Beer Garden down on Avenue B in Manhattan, who did I run into but La Tuna de Derecho de Barçelona!!! Thorntonians will remember them as the group of law students from Barcelona that provided us with an evening of song and sangria in the Library way back in the fall of 2000. The funny costume, the guitars, the lively Catalonian folk tunes, it’s all apparently part of the academic tradition of the universities over in Spain.
Anyhow, it was quite interesting talking to a drunken Spaniard in a perhaps seventeenth-century academic costume at such an hour. I’m pretty sure I managed to use all my nifty Spanish phrases, e.g. “Dondé esta la biblioteca?”, “Me gusto los crustaceos”, and “Mis pantalones estan en fuego.”
That explains why you started speaking with me en espanol when I approached you; utilizing the signature phrases, of course. How did you recognize them? You happened to be in my neighborhood – 14th and A.
I recognized them because they were wearing the funky black and red outfits that they performed in. I bet they meet a lot of interesting people that way.
Are you situated at 14th and A these days? Not bad, though it often seems that Alphabet City is a district almost entirely devoted to drinking.
When you finally convert to the Faith, you ought to consider the Church of the Immaculate Conception on 14th between A and 1st. One of the priests there is Fr. Neuhaus, who edits First Things, a publication linked to on this page. Very bright and orthodox.