Spanish views from a small town

Saturday night was yet another edition of the Eurovision Song Contest. As was more or less predictable, Ukraine won by popular vote. Their song was not one of my favorites, but I think people judged more on the situation than on musical merits.  Which is really ironic, because this contest is supposed to be apolitical. In the past twenty years, Ukraine has had its wrist slapped repeatedly for introducing politics with its Russian neighbor into their songs. This year, when they ended their song, they called out for people to support Mariupol and help out those trapped in the Azovstal works. But, this year was different from previous ones, and it was ignored by the judges. The song itself, ostensibly about the singer's mother, could as easily be extrapolated to the Motherland of Ukraine. In other words, nothing on this earth is apolitical; music, especially. The festival itself began with staged people singing Give Peace a Chance in Turin, where the festival was held. Spain, amazin...

I suppose that now we can say that Europe is inching a little bit closer to pre-pandemic times. Apart from the binge-drinking parties, and the announcements of small concerts, and multitudinous celebrations of football victories, we had Eurovision, broadcast live from Rotterdam, yesterday. Eurovision is a song contest held since 1956 by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and associated countries. The original intent had been to unify the continent (or at least the non-Communist part) through song. Eventually, it grew, and now can include countries from all over the continent, and even from Asia, northern Africa, and Australia, which seems to have been invited into the fold. Since that first year, it has been shown continuously, except last year, when the pandemic came by to say hello. While in the beginning it may have had some serious music, it has evolved into a totally kitsch program. So many countries now present an offering, that finals have had to be introduced, to keep the nu...