He observes the gradual advance of the ash, while savoring the inhaled smoke from the Romeo y Julieta he is smoking on the terrace, defying the evening chill with the help, in addition to the cigar, of a glass of 16-year-old Lagavulin. From inside the Bar, the notes of Bottle of red wine by Eric Clapton escape to the street and, as a devotee of the great classic rock guitarists, Xavi Casinos cannot help but move his head and feet.
"Above all, I am a journalist, which, although complicated and not always appreciated, still seems to me the best profession in the world," he reflects, looking back, at eighteen years old. When he entered El Periódico by pure chance. "They were changing newsrooms and hired some kids to help with the move –he smiles, without losing his enigmatic gaze–. I was one of those kids." And, things that happened before and that today sound like science fiction, once the move was finished, Xavi –who was studying psychology– started working in that newsroom where he stayed for twenty years.
"I lived through what I believe is the end of the golden age of print journalism, the 90s." And he remembers with special affection when he founded and directed a transcendent section such as Gran Barcelona. Through its pages, he extolled the life of a city he had been in love with since childhood, with books like La Barcelona de Cervantes by Luis G. Manegat, the nineteenth-century serial Barcelona y sus misterios, by Antonio Altadill and, later, El misterio de la cripta embrujada by Eduardo Mendoza, "which changed my life."
After two decades, came what was undoubtedly the most complicated moment of his career, "changing register and becoming communication director of Infraestructures del Llevant de Barcelona, a company responsible for the urban transformation linked to the 2004 Universal Forum of Cultures." The leap of faith went well. "I had the best boss I've ever had, Jaume Castellví," he recalls.
Freemasonry, metropolitan area and hidden secrets
Since then, Xavi Casinos has had many ups and downs. He briefly returned to El Periódico, "but I left because it wasn't the same anymore"; he has directed the Barcelona edition of 20 Minutos; he has been press chief for Hospitalet de Llobregat; CEO of COM Ràdio and communication director for the Diputación de Barcelona. He has taught classes and given conferences and, above all, he has not stopped writing about his city and his profession.He has published El misterio del yogur caducado o cómo reinventar los periódicos (The Mystery of the Expired Yogurt or How to Reinvent Newspapers), about how the print press faces the arrival of digital. He has written the novel Tren de venganza (Train of Vengeance), about the construction of the railway that connected Barcelona with Mataró. He has collected his weekly columns from La Vanguardia Barcelona secreta (Secret Barcelona) in five volumes, in which he reveals some mysteries hidden in the subsoil of the city's urban memory.
He has also written extensively about the development of the Barcelona metropolitan area, both for media outlets such as The New Barcelona Post or Política&Prosa, and through books like the one he has just published: Barcelona Metropolitana: del Consell de Cent a la ciutat global (Barcelona Metropolitan: From the Council of One Hundred to the Global City) (Barcelona City Council), where he covers the development of the relationship between the city's powers and its surrounding area.
--- Another topic on which you are a reference expert journalist is Freemasonry...
"Yes! –he laughs–, following the book The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, by Henry Lincoln, Michael Baigent, and Richard Leigh, a fellow journalist and I started to get interested in this topic." Things got complicated and, in the end, he has ended up with five books published on this (more or less) secret fraternity, such as Barcelona maçònica (Masonic Barcelona) or Masones, 100 inventos y aportaciones a la humanidad (Freemasons, 100 Inventions and Contributions to Humanity).
Superimposed cities
Barcelona does not end, for the local, who loves to walk through its streets, through its neighborhoods, each one different. "And even more now, that I go in search of its secrets," he adds. For him there is not only one Barcelona, but there are many, "that of the Middle Ages, that of Modernisme, that of Barça, that of the Olympics… many superimposed cities, one on top of another." Scratching its walls, scrutinizing the darkness of its hidden corners, reveals one or the other. A medieval vestige, an anecdote of the noucentisme, a detail of Porciolism. A city whose walls explain stories that make up its Great History.And then there is that place that for him represents, perhaps more than any other, the magnetic relationship that binds him to the city. "The church of Sant Just i Pastor, which I wouldn't even know how to define very well what it has, but it's something special, something that makes me never stop going in every time I pass nearby," he explains, finishing the last sip of his whiskey and taking the last puffs of his Romeo y Julieta.
--- What will make you keep coming back to this Bar every time you pass by is our gastronomic offer. Dinner time is approaching and you could take advantage of it…
Xavi Casinos sits up. It has cooled down and from the place emerges a pleasant warmth, an inviting smell of freshly cooked food and the strains of Wonderful tonight by Clapton. A good reason to go inside, continue the conversation and, perhaps, have some dinner.
--- My three favorite dishes are potato omelet, with onion, of course; steak tartare or a good Italian pasta – he announces.
--- Don't worry, you won't go hungry.
And the patron smiles, thinking that perhaps he has discovered a new secret of that Great Barcelona that he continues to look at with eyes of love and mystery.