“A boring man like me is never bored.”

Year after year, Serge Bamis (Paris, 1960), reader, writer, and historian, has described and starred in nearly four decades of Saint-Jordi. He has all the moral and intellectual authority to analyze, in this conversation, how Book Day evolved into what it is now: “a giant living manger.” This Tuesday he will once again be one of the most in-demand authors, with his latest short story book, Famous In the second it will be threeBut he suffers from the rain and, above all, from the pieces of the nativity scene that, ready to be signed, will not sign any book.

Years ago you said you were part of the sandwich generation, the one that takes care of parents and children at the same time. With your parents deceased and your adult children, what generation would you say you're part of recently?

– I say that I am in a truce, before things get worse and the health and problems arrive. The children have grown up now, and love is well wrapped up as a great memory, so I used these five or six years to reclaim the joys again, even the memory that I had deactivated, because it was 25 or 30 years ago when there was always a strong emotional priority. Therefore, I say that this period is a truce.

You like to say you're a boring guy, but when was the last time you felt bored?

— There is a philosophical problem here: they are completely compatible things. A boring man is never bored. This is exactly why it's boring. Non-boring people spend their days doing things and having others do them, and involving others in the things they want to do so they don't get bored. But boring, no. Boredom is boring, and therefore it is not boring, because it always has things to do: read, walk, bathe, sleep, think about the decay of the universe. Anything to keep him entertained.

Are you boring in front of others?

– No, no, in front of me. I think the fact that you're constantly thinking about things makes you disconnect a little bit. You may see me for two months in a row without moving and without contributing anything to the family show, and on the other hand, mentally I am a machine.

Are you more of a thinker than a doer?

-Yes, I think there is a moment you choose. I either look and explain what I see or I act. I have a brother who lived a very exciting, very active, very powerful life, and he never thought to write a single line. In other words, if I had the life I dream of, I would not have written a single line. It is as if writing provides an alternative to life. That's why I'm telling you I'm bored.

You wrote that doctors withheld many things from you. What's the last thing you want your doctor to tell you?

– Oh, no, I'm open to being banned in the future. Because I'm so fatalistic, I always think we'll be okay. Deunidó The ones I blocked, because I have diabetes 2, obesity, and all these things that can't be said in the right words, but I think there will be more in the future.

What is the thing you would most regret giving up?

-Anything that would force me to depend on someone. When you have to take care of your parents, the threshold is when you can't support yourself. If it gets to that point, I think we're going to have a problem. The conversation has become very lively, eh!

Read, go to the movies, or watch football. What is the first and what is the last?

— Look, in order of appearance, first is the cinema, which I started going to when I was two years old. This is the first thing I did. I started reading at the age of six, and football must have been around then too. It's normal to find me in the cinema. It is something that includes everything that you love, that you are used to, that you need, that is a refuge. It's something that has come to an end since I've been there. It's a lost cause, and I really like that, it's very romantic. It was also a great read, with a point of commitment at times. It takes effort and the satisfaction is greatest when you enjoy it.

What's the last book that gave you that ultimate satisfaction?

— Biography of Josep Pla. It's like a vision the Lord of the Rings s The Godfather, three in a row. Because of the size, the 1,500 pages, and because of the prose that Xavier Pla has chosen, which is very enjoyable, and because of the somewhat chaotic amount of information. I had the feeling that I didn't know if I was progressing or regressing… It's a very motivating read.

The last Sant Jordi was on Sunday. This being a Tuesday, booksellers are excited. Do you also notice the excitement that existed before Sant Jordi?

– Yes, it is a kind of fever that gets worse every year, we don't learn from some things… I always see excitement and joy on the positive side. But I still think this is a suicidal bet, despite the amount of industrial predictions we make on a day when it might rain and everything will go to waste, as it has. Over-programming Sant Jordi news is suicidal. Culture or literature cannot be based on three dates: September, because there is Book Week, Christmas, and Sant Jordi. The problem we're going to have this Tuesday is that there's going to be a lot of places where there's going to be a lot of authors waiting to be signed who won't even sign a book, who'll have such pieces in the nativity scene that, if you check them out, nothing happens. If you lose the cajaner, if you lose the baby Jesus, if you lose Saint Joseph, people get in a taxi and go buy another one. But there is a whole series of donkeys, pages and rowers who, if they were not there, nothing would happen. I am very sorry about that.

In other words, Sant Jordi as a living manger.

– Yes, it's a giant living nativity scene. It is also true that there is more than one child Jesus, there is more than one Virgin, it is fluid, but yes, yes, this is the feeling that we have created a theater that does not work, but needs victims.

But will it change Sant Jordi?

– What I would change is the way I do it. Reduce production so that it is easier to sustain demand. Then I will try to find a way to have places covered if it rains. It's Quimi Portet's order: If it rains, we'll do it in the pavilion. The winger has to be ready, and we don't have it. And then – and this is really more union, but we're starting to complain… – that writers are being asked more and more. Breakfast, the cocktail party, the party the night before, the week before, if you can come to La Seu d'Urgell… everything becomes such a big ball, that you must feel bad. And looking bad is no fun. It's also true that it has a bright and wonderful side, especially when you can show it to a foreign author or publisher, and they go crazy when they see it, and have hallucinations.

You've also written a lot over the past few years about your breakup. Is having a partner again a possibility or have you already ruled it out?

– Now I said it: it is a possibility. But I don't do anything to provoke her. I even have a feeling that, at some point, I ducked to avoid it. I'm done with that haha! What I can offer at this moment: Bored, diabetic, obese man, a series of looming threats, two grown children, time table Very stressed, I devote myself to writing for radio and television. Oh, if I had to post a message like this, what do you look like, what's your favorite color… Do you know what it's like to live 64 years without anyone asking me that question? I don't know what my favorite color is. What's more, I would like to tell you that I am against people having a favorite color. That's why there's more than one color.

What is the last work you did before writing?

– I worked as an administrator in a management company from the age of 18 until the age of 22, then until the age of 29 as an administrator in a furniture company. It was one chewing Very happy and very efficient. It wasn't until 1989 that I was offered to go into radio to do radio narration with Kim Monzo and do some collaborations. I've always had two jobs. I think it's the ideal situation, because you don't end up getting canceled.

Working as an administrator suits you in your more outgoing years. There was a third job that went out at night.

-Yes, but I was always the first to leave. They called me “the 3 o'clock person” because I left at 3 o'clock. I don't know what will happen after 3 o'clock. I've probably been out of the house two or three nights in my life. What people do while watching the sunrise, and what my children do regularly, under the pretext of waiting for the first train, cuentu xinu.

Let's go to the present. This literature of yours is made of details, of constructing an entire world out of seemingly trivial truth. What's the last detail you noticed?

— Well, look, a month ago I went to Zaragoza to present the book and in the hotel room, one of these NH catalogs, functional, I lay on the bed and on either side of the TV there were two identical paintings but the same thing. It's as if someone said “We don't have any more, let's put one like this.” I tried to sleep, but I couldn't, and I started pointing: Why were they identical? Look for the signature, front and back. Conclusion: I spent the parrot night, but I have been with Zaragoza paintings for a month. This is a testament to how I work: from something insignificant, because there are probably thousands of hotel rooms with two identical paintings, it is not a problem for humanity, but I could not sleep.

And snoring, what's the last thing that made you snore?

– Everything is very technology focused, so in the end I think I won't stick around. If I think there is abuse of prior appointments, citizen alienation from administration, rapid response speed, etc., and my protest is interpreted as complaining, then we lose the battle. It's a real and ugly problem, and another symptom of losing everything. Now I try, every time I snore, to clearly distinguish whether this is an act of sabotage and revolutionary protest, like all of technology, or if it's an old man snoring and seeing things he doesn't like. Aside from that, I don't see those who aren't there contributing much either. QR code enthusiast man…

Do you want to talk about Barcelona? Did we watch Xavi's final Champions League match with Barcelona this week?

— Barcelona is a topic that is difficult not to be cynical about. Let's see, we have a coach who calls the press, for whatever reason, and says, “I'm leaving on June 30.” News of the year. Two days pass and a movement begins saying that Xavi will not leave. It's disrespectful to the poor man, who may have talked about this with his parents, with his wife, who may have been suffering for three months and looking for the right moment to say it… I hope he goes away. Out of decency and dignity. He told me he wanted to leave, explained the reasons, and that the press was unbearable, all right. I think it taught us a little lesson. In fact, the tension was eased, mainly because the team started playing better. It seems like it's all about the decision, if he's eager to believe it…if he stays, I'll be disappointed. I believed it. It's kind of an ending Serranos, that it was all a dream. Oh man, no.

The last two are the same for everyone. Do you know any songs from El Último de la Fila?

– A few I interviewed at first, but I have to admit that I was closer to Quimi Portet. I wasn't a huge fan of theirs, but I have a lot of sympathy for them, because they are also identical in terms of generations and atmosphere. Song? That of Like a donkey tied to the door of a dance. Nova Canco and Catalan Rumba have always been good to me.

The final words of the interview are for you.

– No, they are yours. “You hang up.” “You can't hang.”