BLACK IS BEAUTIFUL.

The Spanish province of Guadalajara—just east of Madrid—has an enclave that’s famous for its arquitectura negra (i.e., “black architecture”).

The exteriors of homes, churches and municipal buildings in this area are covered with layer-upon-layer of flat, thin, black sheets of slate. Slate, of course, is the material from which chalkboards were made in the good ol’ days.

Chalkboards, of course, are the things upon which presentations were made in the good ol’ days…before the invention of PowerPoint®.

My family and I were in the town of Campillo de Ranas earlier today, and snapped the above photo of Casa Rural El Abejaruco—a bed and breakfast that is a classic example of arquitectura negra (and, coincidentally, happens to be owned by friends of ours).

But sightseeing aside, our visit to the region raised some probing anthropological questions. For example:

* If a local child misbehaves during dinner, will his parents hand him a piece of chalk and order him to write “I WILL EAT ALL OF MY VEGETABLES” one hundred times on the front of their house?

* Why was there no monument to Fred Flintstone’s boss in the town square?

* Does the entire town get goose-bumps whenever someone scratches his fingernails across the City Hall’s facade?

I said *probing* anthropological questions. Not intelligent ones.