They say the soul weighs twenty-one grams. But how many square meters does it have? And what is the population density per square meter at the Alma hotel during the Sant Jordi party? At least enough for many people to discover through photos the next day that other people were also there, because they didn’t manage to see each other during the celebration.
Read more Sunset at the Nobel hotel
Upon entering, guests receive a welcome and a rose pin to wear on their lapel. They pose in front of the cameras at the hall’s photocall. The queue to leave jackets has been the preliminary meeting point for those who arrived at the same time. Here we are one more year, and it’s already thirteen, how time flies, and the typical comment to authors about whether they’ve trained their wrist to sign copies; the “let’s hope it doesn’t rain” is also very typical.
Good spirits spread through different areas, and the spring atmosphere fills everything. Some head to the bar, others to the lounge, others to the thousand-square-meter Mediterranean garden at the back behind the windows. As they run into acquaintances and friends –some only meet at this festivity–, they stop to greet and catch up, taking a while to get outside. There’s the stage and all kinds of delicious food, and also that journalistic complication of holding a plate with one hand, a glass with the other, and having no way to take notes to write the chronicle later. The gossip is part of an off the record that will one day transcend; for now, almost everything that happens in the Alma stays in the soul.
Read more Contumacy or contumely? The writers’ party
In a separate area is the engine room. It will fill with writers as the hours pass, they will write against the clock what you can read in this edition; someone will bring them canapés. Nerves, final review before closing. The soul is that force that animates and gives life. The lives that occupy the Alma are the weight of the energy with which the great Sant Jordi celebration begins. They are the soul of the party.
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