There was a day, sometime in the 1970s, when Josep Pla visited the Motel Empordà, and he remained connected to it until his death. He became very close friends with Josep Mercader, the Motel's founder, and later with Jaume Subirós, Mercader's son-in-law. Upon Mercader's death, Pla asked Subirós not to change anything about the restaurant, to continue making the same dishes. His exact words were: "There are houses where the heir starts making changes, and then they collapse." He also gave him another piece of advice: "There are customers you'll have to watch out for, because they'll only come to see if it falls apart and closes; so don't change a thing."

One hundred years ago, Josep Pla i Casadevall (Palafrugell, 1897 - Llofriu, 1981) decided to publish his first book, Things seen, which inaugurated the Diana publishing house. "There's no choice but to do a second printing," wrote editor Ignasi Armengou in Pla a few weeks after the volume arrived in bookstores. "We'll call it a second edition. This will have a certain effect on the public. At the rate we're going, it had sold out. arrived."

In times of pandemic, culture was a refuge. And in dark times like the ones approaching, all voices turn once again to artists to serve as a beacon, a light at the end of the tunnel. "We find ourselves in a reactionary undertow that we must confront," said Mayor Jaume Collboni this Wednesday at the Ciutat de Barcelona Awards ceremony, "because the path to progress is that of culture, democracy, and the protection of the rights we have all won." The award winners in the thirteen cultural categories They are "those who set the course" for the city, which is why the mayor asked them to "make the revolution against reaction."