In Spain, most people live in apartments. Confinement is thus a bit more claustrophobic than for those who are ‘confined’ to a house with a backyard. In times of coronavirus, balconies have thus become oxygen tanks, which have replaced street life, and even opened a new perspective on entertainment.
Although people may sit out on their balconies throughout the day to enjoy a bit of sunlight or to spy on their neighbors, 8:00 PM is when show time begins. The duration, type and quality of entertainment depend on the neighborhood, its inhabitants, and their talents, either real or imagined.
Obtaining a ticket to a good balcony show does not depend on one’s financial resources. Rather, it depends on having a balcony of reasonably large dimensions and living in an apartment building facing other buildings of similar characteristics. The residents of the apartment complex should be artistically inclined as well as imaginative. They must also possess a microphone and an amplifier capable of transmitting their talent to the people living in the other buildings nearby.
The show begins with ten minutes of clapping as a tribute to healthcare workers, policemen, firemen, supermarket employees, and garbage men. The policemen drive through the streets with their sirens wailing, which is their way of thanking the population, who are trying to adhere to restrictions as best they can.
After the clapping has finished, the entertainment begins. Depending on the neighborhood, the show may include anything from bagpipe playing and opera singing to violin concerts and flamenco dancing. Some apartment residents, who are not musicians, use their balcony to act out their fantasy of being world-famous DJs and blast out the hits of their favorite groups in the assumption that their captive listeners will have their same musical taste.
The typical balcony act is someone playing a musical instrument and/or singing. Sometimes there is also dancing. The audience of this spectacle consists of the people on neighboring balconies or those on the balconies across the street. Spectators may even record the act with their mobile phones. Generally speaking, balcony entertainers have sufficient talent and are not the target of rotten tomatoes.
However, there are always exceptions, such as the people who have never performed on any stage except their own living room. They have thus only played their guitar, trumpet, banjo, clarinet, etc. before an enthusiastic audience of family members. As a result, they rejoice in the agreeable fiction that they are world-class musicians, mostly because their grandmother has repeatedly told them so. However, when it finally comes time for their balcony debut, things may not go as well as planned.
One of my friends plays the piano with more enthusiasm than talent. He began learning how to play a bit late in the game, patiently taught by my sister, who is a professional musician in Barcelona. That he learned as much as he did is a tribute to her talent as a teacher. However, a sow’s ear will always remain a sow’s ear.
When confinement began, he realized that the balcony show would probably be his only opportunity to triumph in the entertainment world,. He thus set up a keyboard (complete with microphone and amplifier) to play jazz for his neighbors.
And so one evening after the 8.00 PM clapping, he began his musical repertoire. His concert was charitably experienced by the audience as a kind of Rocky Horror Show (so awful that if he had persisted, he might have acquired a cult following). But that was not to be. The next morning, a few of his neighbors sent him a discreet e-mail to ask him if perhaps he would consider using his Cordon Bleu certificate to give them cooking lessons instead. He is still thinking about it
Balcony acts also include other ways to alleviate the boredom of house confinement while boosting community spirit. In certain apartment complexes, such initiatives include playing bingo or a community aerobics class, held from a rooftop by a resident who is a personal trainer. There are also people that use their balconies to teach ballroom dancing. However, for all of this to take place, it is necessary to have a suitable architectural environment and residents with diverse talents.
In my case, I am singularly unfortunate because my balcony is quite small and narrow. In addition, I only have a view of the Alhambra and Sierra Nevada. Since there are no tall buildings in front of mine, no show of any sort is possible.
However, in the end, this hardly matters because even if I had bought a microphone and amplifier from Amazon, and even if there were tall buildings on the other side of the road, I still have no marketable balcony talent. It is true that I am rather good at delivering Powerpoint presentations on abstruse academic topics, but such an act would only be appreciated by neighbors suffering from acute insomnia. So, life in confinement is unfair.
Still, balconies in Spain are not only used for musical entertainment. In times of coronavirus, they are also used as crime alert stations. Nighttime entertainers wake up in the morning, jump out of bed, and don the cape of fearless vigilantes, capable of meting out quick justice to anyone infringing the law.
Many spend the day looking out from their balconies and shouting insults at passers-by to reprimand them for not following regulations. These insults may or may not be deserved since they can have no idea whether these people are essential workers with the right to travel to and from their jobs. The neologism designating the most extreme type of vigilante is balconazi [balcony Nazi].
In fact, during enforced confinement, more people than ever are calling the police to report violations. According to my youngest son, who is a police officer, some of these citizens act as though they were wearing an invisible deputy sheriff’s badge. They expect the police to arrest alleged offenders (and perhaps lynch them) before knowing all the facts. (They could learn a thing or two from Joe Friday.)
My son has always worked at the Madrid airport, but since air travel is temporarily dead, he is now patrolling the streets. Yesterday, the balcony vigilantes reported a man who was acting strangely. He was shouting incoherently as he wended his aimless way down the sidewalk, while shaking his fist in anger and frustration at the world in general. Feeling threatened, the balcony vigilantes sprung into action, and in their new role as coronavirus crime-stoppers, immediately called the police.
When my son and his partner arrived at the scene, they tried to reason with the offender, but he would not listen. He became violent, and they had to subdue him. The entire scene was filmed on the cell phones of all the balcony vigilantes. Fortunately, the operation was a success, or he would probably have been on the evening news.
As it turned out, the culprit was a Romanian man, who was drunk, crazy, and unable to talk coherently, even with my son who knows sufficient Romanian from his Dracula tours in the Carpathians to converse with the pickpockets that he usually arrests in the airport.
When they finally had the man in handcuffs, they called in to ask whether they should take him to jail or to the hospital (it was a toss-up). Their boss said that the hospitals were full with coronavirus patients and thus had no room for psychiatric cases, especially those with addictions. As for the jail, it was also full of people who had violated confinement. Since there was no room in either establishment, they were told to take the man to a remote area of a public park, which could not be viewed from any balcony, let him go, and forget about him.
Hopefully, the balcony vigilantes will never find out.
