Prado museum

Humanities, Caravaggio, and Artificial Intelligence.

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Am I the only one who is sick and tired and bored of AI? And this nightmare has only just begun? Yes, let’s eradicate Cancer and streamline flight traffic, and all that good stuff, but do you really need an AI generated picture of whatever nonsense you think of? and you certainly do not need it for that high school or college essay. Sorry.

This comes to mind because AI is already everywhere we look, but also because as every cloud has a silver lining, folks are hungry, thirsty for meaning. The solution? more Humanities, more arts, music, theatre, literature, more stories, more narrative.

Everybody has an opinion on AI. Some more positive, like Spanish writer Irene Vallejo, who thinks AI will “push” us towards the Humanities, and some more pessimistic, like French philosopher Éric Sadin who wisely explains that AI will not generate new jobs -at any rate not enough to cover those lost to AI.

So what does Caravaggio have to do with all this? Well, I was thinking about AI when I unexpectedly “bumped” into a brilliant Caravaggio at the Colecciones Reales recently (read about that here) and I was so deeply moved, that I understood how art and the humanities are the antidote to AI. A few days later I saw two more Caravaggios at the Prado, including a lost one which was in the attic of a Madrid family. I then basked in the memory of other Caravaggios I had recently seen: one in the Cathedral of Toledo, and a couple at the Doria Pamphilj Gallery in Rome. The evidence was evident: AI can “paint” just like a Caravaggio with the amazing 3D effect and the chiaroscuro, but it will never be a Caravaggio.

Caravaggio only painted about 60 to 105 paintings, and the story each one tells, the drama, the humanity, is moving. You can see where each painting is on this Wikipedia page.

So, if you are hungry, thirsty for meaning, for purpose, for humanity, find a Caravaggio near you and go enjoy it. If you can’t find one, you can read a good book, watch a good film, listen to a symphony, etc. You are welcome!

The backside of paintings, “Reversos,” how to bribe your niece to go to a museum with you.

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Have you ever thought about what is on the other side of a painting? Well, the Prado museum read your mind and has an exhibition just on that! The back sides of the painting “Reversos.”

So, I grabbed my Amigos del Museo del Prado card and invited my niece to come. How did you get a preteen to go to a museum with you? You might ask. Very easily; first she is a sport, and second, I went ice skating with her the day before!!

The exhibit is a real revelation. From plain dedications to the subjects and patrons on the back, to sketches and drafts, to “real” backsides of the painting -paintings with two sides! Some insightful and beautiful, some a bit spicy. Walking around this exhibition felt very private, the public was not “supposed” to see what was going on behind the paintings, it was all a bit secret.

If you are in Madrid until March 3rd, make sure you check out this exhibit. You are welcome!

You should have a side gig. Tonxo Tours as a (paying) hobby

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Years ago, I read an article by the great psychiatrist (who in 1981, New York City Mayor Edward Koch appointed Director of psychiatric and prison health services of the New York City Health and Hospitals Corporation, the largest public general hospital system in the United States.*) Dr. Luis Rojas Marcos. At any rate, Rojas Marcos mentioned that in order to have a healthy, stable life you needed three equal pillars, briefly: a loving relationship, an enriching job, and a hobby that had nothing to do with the other two pillars.

Today I am going to focus on that third pillar, your hobby. In my case one of my hobbies is the tour company I set up years ago when I was trying to make ends meet in Spain. Fortunately, now I do have that enriching, enjoyable job, but I never stopped doing tours when I came to Spain. It is something I love doing: sharing my passion for the history, culture, food, etc. of Madrid.

As much as I love the countryside and the outdoors, I must confess I am a city boy. I have always been fascinated by the energy generated by cities. Some of my fondest memories are of walking around cities. Add to that the fact that I have been blessed to live in many different cities (Madrid, New York, London, Boston, Paris, Lausanne, Geneva, etc.) and you get a bit of a city geek.

Of course, it is quite different seeing a job from the outside to being on the inside. We all have an idea of what a certain job is like, only to realize that the day to day of that work is vastly different.

This is what happened to me during my first year as a tour guide. Yes, there is the excitement of meeting and working with different people every time and with sharing your passion for the city. The rest is very much like any old job. There is a lot of psychology and salesmanship involved in getting visitors on board with your tour. There is also a small percentage of customers that are not satisfied and nothing you do is going to make them change their minds.

As you do more and more tours the city shares more and more secrets. The night before a tour, you review the itinerary and your notes and books. Invariably, you learn something new that you can incorporate into the tour. It is a very enriching. I also enjoy questions and requests from the customers.

This Christmas break I had a chance to do a few tours. One with a French family group, another with my old university the European School of Economics where we combine a tour with orientation teambuilding activities, I also did a couple of Prado Museum tours, although big chunks of the museum where closed due to lack of staff due to Covid.

In conclusion, if you don’t already have one, you should find a hobby that you love, and if it leaves you some green, even better!!

ESE did a great Instagram video of the tour which you can see here:

*From his website https://luisrojasmarcos.com/biography/

Tonxo Tours first birthday!

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My homemade logo
Promoting electric scooter tours!
Working at the tourism trade show FITUR
The almost 300 year old oven at Botín
El Escorial
A Belgian family
I have done a wheelchair tour
Philip the IV (in the background!)
A group of French bakers!
The oldest restaurant in the world!!
A French group
A group in the Prado Museum (in the Jerónimos cloister)
Team building activities for groups
The European School of Economics group

As we sit in our quarantine, as I sit at home, Tonxo Tours has quietly turned one year old! So it is only befitting that I write a quick report on our first year of existence – Although it already existed informally and for many of my friends and friend’s friends who had gotten a tour from me.

My first memories of giving tours was as a teenager living in London, whenever friends or families of my dad’s work came to town I was often asked to take them to see the Changing of the Guard at Buckingham palace. At that time I also took a lot of tours of museums, palaces, etc., so obviously that must have left some valuable residues. In university I started showing Madrid and Spain to my friends who came to visit. One friend showed up with English Rock groups who we would take out during their visits. A friend once showed up with the Monaco Olympic Sailing Team for me to show them around a bit! Then, living in New York and Boston I continued showing people around those cities. With experience and learning, every tour became better and better. Fast forward a couple of decades and many tours of Madrid, Barcelona, Boston and New York later, and I finally made Tonxo Tours a reality. As they say: turn your hobby into your work and you will not have to work again.

This first year has been the expected mix of wins and frustrations. I must admit the wins and the rewards have far outweighed the frustrations. I was lucky to start off right away finding a couple of sources of business: a couple of Internet platforms and a local transport company whose customers ask for tours. I created a homemade website and logo with my trademark bow tie, and I was in business. In my first year I have shown Madrid to over 200 people. My most popular tour has been Old Madrid, I have shown the Prado Museum a few times, the Royal Palace, a handful of other museums, and I have also gone out of town to El Escorial, La Granja and Segovia. I developed a game to play when children come on the tour. I have used the same game adding activities as a university orientation team-building game which I did with my uni, the European School of Economics. I did a tour with a woman in a wheelchair (she had broken her foot doing the Camino de Santiago), I have done tours in minivans and buses with 50 people,  one customer with a chain of pastry shops in Belgium wanted to see the pastry shops in old Madrid, that was fun-and tasty! I have done tours in Spanish, English and French, and I have even done a couple of tours in Italian, which, with only one semester of training, was tough (see the video below for proof). The experience has been so much fun and so rewarding!

Unfortunately due to the Covid-19 I have had to cancel a handful of tours I had booked.

And I have learnt. What a learning curve! Like many things, being a tour guide involves psychology, salesmanship and, of course, knowing your stuff. I cannot wait for many more tours and many more years!

Please spread the word! My favorite and best marketing tool is word of mouth!!

Feel free to share my web www.tonxotours.com and Instagram and Facebook tonxotours

 

My Madrid (continued)

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The underside of the statue
With Jaime
Downtown Madrid
Alfonso XII monument Retiro Park, Madrid
Yes, that is snow on the mountains!

Madrid, like most cities, has a cadre of writers that have historically portrayed it. From Quevedo, to Moratín, to Pérez Galdós or Unamuno. I understand them well. I have often said – and I’m sure I’m not being original here – that cities are like people, with their quirks and ugly bits. Madrid never disappoints. In fact, I would say that just walking around the city is one of my favorite pastimes. And I always discover something new.

These last few years when I come to visit I like to spend most of my time with my parents, so I do not get out much. They – like the rest of us – are not getting any younger. But when my childhood friend Jaime, who is in the art restoration business calls to say he has access to the top of the Alfonso XII monument in the Retiro Park in Madrid, you go.

It was a clear, brisk winter morning in Madrid, the highest capital in Europe at about 646 meters (2,119 feet) above sea level. I walked down the Castellana, the main boulevard, the backbone of Madrid to the park. When I got to the monument, miraculously, there was no one there, extremely rare, as it is normally filled with tourists, romantic couples, Cannabis salesmen, etc. it would soon fill up, even with a professional photo shoot of a rather pretty model, as they tend to be.

This amazing sculptural set was made of a very soft stone that is literally falling apart. Some colleagues of my friend Jaime have been charged with researching how to restore it. When Jaime showed up we climbed up and up, a dark metal staircase to the very top, just under the statue of King Alfonso XII who reigned Spain from 1874 to 1885. There are some small windows as you stand under the bronze base of the statue, you can actually see the wickets that hold the king’s horse’s legs! Since they say a picture is worth a thousand words here are some photos to save me some writing.

After this amazing experience Jaime and I walked across the park to the nearby Prado museum for a coffee. Jaime did part of his training there, so he is obviously very familiar with it. I had not been there in five years, so going back was a very cathartic experience for me. At one point Jaime stood staring at Tiziano’s huge portrait of Carlos V on horseback. When I pressed Jaime to tell me what he was so profoundly looking at, he laconically replied “Hmmm, it looks like there might be some humidity damage on that corner.” Occupational hazards of hanging out with an art restoration expert! So we had a lovely coffee catching up, walked a bit around the museum and walked around the city. I must say, a morning does not get much better than that. Gracias Jaime.