Happy twenties Barcelona!

On December 11, 2019, a Twitter user asked the RAE if the next decade would begin on January 1, 2020, or 2021. The Royal Spanish Academy replied that the 20s of the 21st century would not begin on January 1, 2020, as it might seem, but on January 1, 2021. According to the RAE, which referred to the Diccionario Panhispánico de dudas (Pan-Hispanic Dictionary of Doubts), "each decade begins in a year ending in 1 and ends in a year ending in 0." Not all experts agree, but since for this article it suits me perfectly that the decade of the 20s began just over a week ago, se non è vero è ben trovato.

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Changing years or decades, for practical purposes, has no significance. On January 1st in the morning, we are the same person we were on December 31st at night. However, to a greater or lesser extent and as absurd as it may be, we all long for the problems, worries, and miseries that have accompanied us during the year to disappear, as if by magic, on New Year's Eve, when the clock strikes twelve. Secretly, we hope that with the arrival of the new year we will be a nobler, more cultured, richer, freer, more awake, and happier person. 2020 has perhaps been the year we collectively most wished to leave behind, and 2021, the one we started with the most hope.

Exactly a century ago, the world was ushering in a decade that in the West would be known as the Golden Twenties, Happy Twenties, and even Roaring Twenties. The First World War was behind them, there was economic prosperity, and people were crazy about having fun. For Barcelona, it was a decade of great social and political changes. I imagine that in the city's streets there must have been an atmosphere similar to that in the capital of the Weimar Republic, so well portrayed in the series Babylon Berlin. Gun violence, labor struggles, repression, and political clashes that often ended in bloodshed, but also charleston, liters of champagne, glitter, and sexual freedom.

Gun violence, labor struggles, repression, and political clashes that often ended in bloodshed, but also charleston, liters of champagne, glitter, and sexual freedom

A Barcelona that I discovered when in 2012 the CCCB (Center of Contemporary Culture of Barcelona) dedicated a magnificent exhibition to one of the city's most mythical avenues: "El Paralelo, from 1894 to 1939". The exhibition, curated by Xavier Albertí and Eduard Molner, revealed to me that El Paralelo has not always been a rather sad street, with mediocre establishments, save for a few exceptions, and with a handful of half-collapsed or permanently in crisis entertainment venues. Quite the opposite!A century ago, our Paralelo had nothing to envy Montmartre or Broadway.It was full of theaters, performance halls, cafes, and cabarets where residents of the Chinese quarter, sailors, anarchist workers, and wealthy people mixed in search of all kinds of entertainment. A heterogeneous, multicultural, and very, very liberal Paralelo that radiated modernity throughout the city. Republicanism, socialism, and anarchism were preached from the same stages or a few meters from where hours later there were striptease shows. In the cafes there were heated discussions about politics, but people also flirted and displayed modern and daring hairstyles and dresses. The spectacle of modernity.

One hundred years later, the streets of Barcelona are deserted from ten at night. There is a curfew and the city seems dead or stunned. The dance floors have been closed for months. With all we've danced at Apolo... The most rogue, noisy, chaotic, and fun bars have become aseptic dispensing points for lattes to go, without any charm or warmth. Impossible to flirt with someone while having a gin and tonic at the bar since, from the obligatory safe distance and shielded behind your mask, the fear of contagion makes you look at strangers with distrust.

One hundred years later, the streets of Barcelona are deserted from ten at night. There is a curfew and the city seems dead or stunned. The dance floors have been closed for months. With all we've danced at Apolo...

We have entered the 20s, but, unlike a century ago, for now these are not golden, happy, or crazy times. Hopefully, we can soon meet ten, fifteen, twenty, one hundred, or a thousand people again to laugh, chat, dance... One of the graces of cities is precisely this: to be a multitude in constant interaction. Happy twenties Barcelona!