With more electricity than what initially seemed to be contracted for the occasion, because in the previous hours sparks had flown when the merchants’ union on Passeig de Gràcia had complained about how short the planned hours were, the mayor of Barcelona, Jaume Collboni has turned on the lights that until next January 6 will remind us that it is Christmas and, what seems more important, will encourage shopping. It was not a simple gesture of turning a switch. For a short time now, The city council seems determined to turn this date at the end of November into an event and to do it, so to speak, in the Barcelona style, with a show in the street to which some 15,000 people have attended. Other cities compete to plant the Everest of Christmas trees. Barcelona believes that its competition is different, not mountaineering, but design, for 20 years, a lot of design, and in this edition, in addition, a ‘show’ of circus, music, dance and lights, come on, the first chapter of a month and a half of activities that concludes with the majestic Three Kings Parade.
An hour after the sun sank over the horizon (something that in Barcelona can really be seen from very few observatories, and if it is also intended to be done at sea, there is only one and it is highly sought after), the click was made. . 104 kilometers of streets have been illuminated, a considerable number, some unprecedented until now, such as the thriving Paseo de Sant Joan, and others will remain pending, such as the new green axis of Consell de Cent, planned for next year despite the fact that an ideas competition was called and there was a winner, but the problem that arose, as has been said, has been the schedules. Except on the designated dates that everyone can assume, the lights will be turned on at half past five in the afternoon and turned off at 10 at night, a mistake, from the point of view of some of the downtown merchants, who maintains that in this matter Madrid is taking less trouble and wisely extends the hours until midnight. The shops may already be closed, but not everyone has already gone home, and even less so the tourists, that blessing on streets like Passeig de Gràcia.
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Aside from that brawl more typical of Goethe, who dedicated his last breath to asking for “light, more light”, what is notable has been, above all, the show, organized on Passeig de Gràcia because that spine of the Eixample turns more or less 200 years old in 2023. Baptized ‘Astronòmica’, the festival has been dedicated to the memory of Assumpció Català, a very noble gesture, although, depending on how you look at it, somewhat contradictory. She was an eminent astronomer who came to that scientific discipline through mathematics. It is always necessary to remember that she was the first woman to obtain a doctorate in Exact Sciences from the University of Barcelona. It was in 1970. But when reference is made to her role as an observer of astronomical phenomena, a field in which she excelled internationally, it is often forgotten that she was born in 1925, that is, decades before the sky was stolen by, ahem! !, light pollution.
The show began with a sax solo, very professional, not Christmas carol-like, by the Big Band Mambo Jamo and Swing Cats. The secular nature of these festivities admits less and less discussion, but beyond the music and the search for an edge to everything, perhaps what is really striking has been the type of circus acts selected to reach in a ‘crescendo’ until the moment of lighting the lights. lights. A metaphor for politics? Can. He has walked on a wire the tightrope walker La Corcoles, without majorities to support it. They say that in the world of the circus, acrobats know that the public, rather than fearing that he will achieve an even more difficult task, what actually keeps him expectant is the possibility that he will fall. Although with the complaining merchants, of the official start of Christmas in Barcelona it can be said that Collboni has traveled through it for the first time without major setbacks, yes, with a couple of streets, at least, in which the light has been delayed and it took them a couple of hours to be partying.