Piolín and Me

Like "Marley and Me," but better.


Our favorite song!
(From the "Lost Tapes")


Our favorite movie!

Uruguay... And beyond!

Now back in Bs As and in library mode, I spent a couple wonderful days last weekend in Colonia, Uruguay. Despite being a hotbed for tourists from around the world, Colonia was a real treat, and I took lots of photos, which can all be seen here. I have also included a few highlights below.


The view looking back towards Bs As from the ferry headed towards Colonia.



I was very happy about the possibility of going to Uruguay!! YAY! :-)



The house where I stayed with my friend's dad (and now my friend), Jorge, which Jorge and his wife built themselves back in the early 80's.



The view from Jorge's house down to the Río de la Plata.



The beach. (It looked better than this, but I think this shot would make a great breakup album cover.)



Downtown colonial Colonia, Calle de los Suspiros.



The lighthouse.



The view out from the top of the lighthouse. Being the escala escaleras that I am, I had know problem climbing the stairs up to the top.



Colonia's coast.




Colonia's old Bull fighting ring, originally built by the Portuguese. It was only briefly in use from 1910-1912. I think they should fix it up and invite Led Zeppelin to play. That would be epic.




A final desolate beach shot.

Another Weekend Report

FRIDAY

It was Friday afternoon and I had plans to go see the Charlie Chaplin film, City Lights, at 7pm at the Centro Cultural Borges. I'd never seen the film before and, coupled with the opportunity to check out the CCB, it seemed like a pleasant cultural opportunity for a Friday eve.

The walk there took about 45 minutes, mostly down Calle Florida. Street vendors in the middle of the pedestrian pathway and stores for mid-range to fine shopping on both sides of the street for blocks and blocks. As it turns out, the CCB is located inside the Galerías Pacífico, which is a shopping mall. Now, the local porteños might tell you that my previous statement is not true, that the CCB is really next to the shopping mall, but, my friends, I'm here to tell you that that the Centro Cultural Borges in Buenos Aires, Argentina, is indeed located inside a shopping mall.

Hence, before I check out the CCB, I take advantage of the consumer-friendly circumstances and do some shopping!

Frankly, I could use another pair of jeans. I brought down two pairs of jeans, along with one pair of corduroys (of no use whatsoever due to the summer weather) and a pair of khakis, but I ruined one pair shortly upon arriving. Open ink-pen in left-hand pocket. For the second time. As luck would have it, however, the Galerías Pacífico houses a Levi's store! I walk in knowing exactly what I want - skinny style, 31 waist, 30 length - but don't know about jean sizes in Argentina. As I peruse the stock all I see are even-numbered sizes. "OK," I say to myself, "Maybe a 30-30 will work." I ask the clerk for said size, but, as it stands, he informs me of the fact that the shortest length available is a 32. This very fact vexes me, since Argentine men are not necessarily known for their height. Not that 32 length means tall person, but, you know, I mean, whatever. Nevertheless, I try on a pair of 30-32, hoping against hope that the dark, denim deities will be on my solemn side. Of course, they're way too long.

By this point, I've still got some time to kill before the show starts at 7pm, so I take the mall escalator up to the CCB. The CCB itself is not much to speak of. Mostly clever quotes and photos of Jorge Luis Borges. Still with time, I end up sitting down in a nearby cafe for an agua con gas and a piece of cake. There's an American couple nearby, and their gestures are as loud as their words, and their words are very loud.

Movie time! The modest theater is like an arctic chamber. The film will be shown off of a DVD with misspelled Spanish subtitles and onto a small projector screen. Directly, the American couple sits down right behind me. As the movie starts, I am sincerely struck by the ferocity of their hyena-like laughter. Yes, the film is very funny. Haha, very funny. Haha, it is to laugh. Despite this distraction, the film is wonderful. The boxing scene especially had me in awe (see below).



City Lights is only 81 minutes. Around the 65 minute mark, the male half of the American couple falls asleep and starts to snore, furiously.

SATURDAY

I have plans for Saturday night. Plans with people I don't know to go out to dinner and then to a play. My main contact for the encounter is a contact of a contact. In her email invitation, she tells me that we will be eating Peruvian food and and the group will be comprised of an art critic, a filmmaker, a photographer, and a chef, so I am intrigued. (Initially, I misread the email and thought that the play would be called "peruvian food first," or something like that. Who holds the blame for this mireading? The world may never know!) We meet up outside of the Abasto shopping center and walk the streets, slippery with rain and dog shit, in search of a Peruvian restaurant. I order an agua con gas with dinner and it promptly explodes all over the table as I twist the cap. I'm used to having waiters open my water bottles for me, I guess. (Please, whatever you do, fair reader, don't ever re-read the previous sentence!) Maybe I'm nervous. I am. But this special congregation of artists is, really, not that special, and, yes, I have had Peruvian food before.

And we're off to the theater! The crooked rain hitting harder the pavement. As we arrive, I try to dry off my wet glasses with my shirt, but that just makes the smudges worse. So, while in the baño, I take advantage of the privacy and clean my glasses with the very fabric of my life: my cotton boxers.

Now, the play is being performed at the Beckett Teatro, which excites me. I ask one of the guys in our group if he's at all familiar with the work of Samuel Beckett, attempting to explain in my slightly slurred (chicha and beer at dinner) Spanish the scene in Beckett's novel, Molloy, in which Molloy has a set number of stones that he sucks on and rotates from pocket to pocket and pocket to mouth in various iterations for a good ten pages or so. As to the logical question, then, of whether it was the best or the worst introduction to Samuel Beckett, I'll respond by simply saying "Yes."

The play we see has absolutely nothing to do with Peruvian food. It's named Angelito Peña and is written by some famous Argentine stage actor and director named Julio Chávez. With reason do we find ourselves at the Beckett Teatro, for Angelito Peña is certainly theater of the absurd, bordering on the abstupid. It starts with a Paraguayan woman reading the White Pages out loud in an under-enunciated monotone. By the end, I'd say I took in maybe 25-30% of what was said. Luckily, it was a short play.

Reviews are mixed within the group. We look for a bar, for a drink. It's raining harder now. We duck into some hippie tango dive for a beer, but most of the group is losing their social energy. One, though, Carla, has a party in mind. I'm down and I accompany her while the others return to their homes. At the party, Carla doesn't really know anyone and I need to pee (and clean my glasses again!). Eventually, Carla runs into someone she knows: a dead ringer for the actress, Chloe Sevigny, named Julieta. Oddly enough, most of the partygoers are aspiring actors, including our Julieta, who is kind enough to show me me the way to the bathroom. I knock. No answer. I can see that no light is on on the other side of the door. I pull and I push as hard as I can on the door, but it won't open. I come back to Julieta and Carla and tell them of my predicament. Can't see, need to pee. Julieta walks back with me and, with the grace of a girl who, in every single way, looks like a semi-famous actress, she slides the door open.

Cementerio de la Recoleta

Weekend Roundup

It was all supposed to start on Thursday night.

Lenni, an unknown of an unknown, though clearly a known man about town - and how could he not be with that look(!) - had told me that I could spin some of my 45s that night at Makena as part of a party called AfroMama Jams. I was told to show up around 1am: I would have 45 minutes on the decks; I would not be paid. Lenni also told me to bring the heat, for the good people in Buenos Aires like to party hard. That was all fine by me, as I have sincerely missed DJing, and feel like I can let a heat rock loose when called upon. Unsure of how Northern Soul, and, for that matter Northern Rob, aka Roberto del Norte, aka DJ Good Flavor, aka DJ Buen Sabor, would be received in El Sur, I felt nervous all the same.

In the end, I had no reason at all to be nervous. There were no turntables at AfroMama Jams that night, and my debut on the Southern scene was not meant to be.

There was, however, a pretty good funk/soul/hip hop cover band at work. They even covered "I'll Bet You" by Funkadelic, which I though was pretty hip.



My favorite part of the evening, though, was when the B-Boy break dancers started making their moves. One, in particular, felt confident enough in his skills to get up on stage and dance when the band was in the middle of a "Give it to Me Baby" (Rick James)-"Thriller" medley of sorts. (Only now do I realize how the basslines in those tracks are strikingly similar, so the combination ultimately makes great sense.) As I looked closer at the B-Boy, however, I noticed that his sleeveless t-shirt had something written on the front of it. After struggling to make out the letters, in a flash it all became clear: his sleeveless muscle t simply read "The Beatles." I found this to be a supreme cross-cultural moment, and wondered aloud if the B-Boy had ever break danced to Ringo's drum solo at the end of "Abbey Road."

In the course of that Thursday night, a young man named Fabrizzio approached me to see if I would be interested in spinning records at his bar that Saturday night...

"Of course! That'd be great! What's the name of the place?"
"..."
"La Evita?"
"..."
"What? I can't hear you. Is the bar called La Evita Bar? Like, Evita Perón?"
"Levitar!"
"Aha, Levitar. Like the verb. To rise up. To levitate. I get it."

---

Fabrizzio told me to arrive at Levitar at 1am as well on Saturday night. Parties in Buenos Aires go late, to say the least, and the function at Levitar would go all the way to 10am. Hence, very few heard my spot from 1-2:30, save those that worked at the bar and were setting things up. In fact, the place didn't really get going till around 5am. Nevertheless, I had fun, I danced, I enthusiastically sang along to Wild Cherry, Kool and The Gang, KC and the Sunshine Band, and, who could forget, Jamiroquai, and got home around 6am. I think the young people ultimately want to hear hip hop and the hits down here, and they don't really seem to care whether the music they're hearing and dancing to is off vinyl or mp3, so that's that.

---

In other DJ news, at this point my Scandinavian tour looks to be set: April 18th in Malmöe, Sweden, at Club Funtion; April 25th in Helsinki, Finland, at Soul Sides; and April 30th and 31st with The Fabulous Mr. C in St. Petersburg, USSR. That's what's up!

El "look"

Translated from the Spanish

Robert - You know, it's like sometimes these waiters in these restaurants, they look at me funny. Like they anticipate that they're not going to understand what I say before I even say it. They give me this look, then, and they look at me not as if I were a foreigner (extranjero) but rather (sino que) an alien (extraterrestre).
Leo - It's because you don't have the face of an Argentine.
Robert - Really? You don't think so? I don't look that different do I?
Leo - Well...I take back what I just said. It's not that you don't have the face of an Argentine, but rather a face from a different decade.
Robert - Ahhh.
Leo - So it's not really a question of the geographical zone, you see--
Robert - It's a question of the temporal zone. I get it!
Leo - Yes, and not a question of the time zone, mind you. There is a difference.

Out to eat

LUNCH

I had intentions to eat lunch out. It was a hot day. I recalled a place named Bar Sitio (Bar Place) that wasn't too far away and always seemed to have a group of girls eating in front of it. I made my way, arrived, took a seat outside, but only a pair of teenage boys sat drinking beer at a nearby table. Oh, well. I was hungry. I had my book with me.

Not too long thereafter I reckoned that it was indeed too hot to sit outside, so I let the waiter know of my desire and changed tables and moved inside. The ceiling fans made their cool noise, no doubt; yet I started to sweat with greater intensity. At that point I looked up to the ceiling and noticed that I had unwisely chosen to sit under the one ceiling fan that did not work. It sat there motionless, clueless, much like myself. Furthermore, the clientele was solely comprised of men over 50. No women, no girls. I took out my book - Amuleto by Roberto Bolaño - and started to read.

It was a nice lunch: steak sandwich w/ lettuce and tomato, french fries, agua mineral sin gas. Just what I had wanted. I only had some thirty pages left in my book, so I thought I might stay there and finish it, despite the heat. My earlier buzz had by then completely faded. (Dani, one of my hosts, and made me a mimosa around 1pm, when I was still in my bedclothes, my thin arms covered in mosquito bites from the night before in spite of our best efforts to keep them away. Later that afternoon I would ask him if he had any insect repellant that I might use to spray in my room. He did. "Do you know how to use it?" Dani asked politely. I did.) I had heard once that when it's hot outside it's better to drink something hot, which made me then remember how an ex-girlfriend once told me that hot tub water is good for your complexion (this latter piece of advice being a true bourgeois remedy). Red wine seemed like the closest thing to a hot and alcoholic drink that I could think of, so I asked the waiter for a glass.

"We don't have any right now," he started. "Wait, actually, we have _____ in either half bottle or full bottle. Which would you prefer?"
"Well, can I just have a single glass?" I replied, not sure if I had heard him right or not.
"No! Half bottle or full bottle!"
"Ah...Half bottle then, por favor."

I had thirty pages left in the book and 7/8ths of a half bottle (7/16ths of a full bottle) in front of me. I went to work. Who knew what I would finish first. Red wine tends to go straight to my dome.

DINNER

I had just bragged to my father in an online chat session about how I hoped my next meal would be "something other than steak." I was serious, though. Steak the night before, steak sandwich for lunch earlier that day. So, I went to a restaurant that I had been to for the first time just days before called Bar España (Bar Spain), where I had had a tasty fish dish for lunch and received excellent service. The fish had been one of the daily specials that day, which meant a cheaper meal, and I went for the daily special again this evening, not really knowing what it was: riñoncitos al verdeo. When in Rome! I knew I recognized the word riñon, but couldn't exactly place it. The dish arrived. It looked stranger than I had expected as the waitress served some on to my plate. It smelled strange, too. It wasn't until I took my first exceedingly chewy bite, however, that I remembered what riñon meant in English: kidney.

La diferencia es lo más mínima, pero máxima tamvién.

Estas ubas berdes no están muy vuenas; es muy posivle que lleben la vacteria esa de la cual havlavan hoy en la nobela que salió en la telebisión. Vueno, no es berdad. !Sólo estoy vromeando! No es que estoy vorracho, amigos míos, ni mucho menos. Son estas las vromas povres de un bagavundo vigotudo, vonaerense, y pequeñovurgués, no más. Ahora me boy. ?Bale? Tengo barias cosas que hacer. !Que les baya vien!

Las librerías (The bookstores)

I'm going to this librería tonight.
It's called El Ateneo (1860 Santa Fe, BsAs).

La americana

Y, si se puede saber,
?cómo es que te consume esa revista que vas leyendo?
Te hablo, te hablo en serio, americana, rubia, cuerpo de ex-gimnasta.
(Bueno, te hablo telepáticamente, pero, igual, te hablo francamente también.)

A ver,
?es que Vanity Fair sea tan ineresante de verdad, o es que estás disimulando?

Ensalada, sopa, helado...Revista.

Capaz que quisieras algo más.

Que sí,
Que el helado te ha traicionado!

Los ajedrecistas (The chessplayers)

There we were: Ruben, Maneesh, Carrie, Lucas, Horash, Guido, and me. I really knew none of these people. Ash from a purro floated in Ruben's finished bowl of frosted flakes. Carrie had just brought in a lemon meringue pie as a gesture of goodwill, and we were about to order pizza. Horash, an Italian-Iranian, called it in; they said it'd be 80 pesos for 2 larges and some empanadas. Lucas, a local, couldn't believe it. He called back. Asked about the price. "40 pesos," they now said, and apologized for the error.

I was wearing a hat - a vain attempt to dissimulate the blemish on my forehead. Ruben and Horash, meanwhile, apparently felt no need to hide their chest acne underneath a shirt. I wasn't sure what any of this said about any of us. Surely something!

The plan was to go see a drum show that would go from 7-10pm, but we were in no hurry. As we waited for the pizza to arrive, Horash asked me if I would like to play a game of chess. "Oh," I hesitated, "I really haven't played for a while, and I'm not very good either." Both of my excuses were true. I used to play a fair amount back when I was a camp counselor, in my early 20's and late teen's. I even led an activity called "Chess w/ Wellser!" a few times, which was fun. But the thought of playing chess brought back bad memories as well, including always being bested by an 11-year old named Trevor, no matter how I thought I had him cornered. "You got served, Wellser. Checkmate," he would calmly state, looking me square in the eye, and then proceed to flick over my king with his child finger. "What!?!" I'd helplessly bemoan back at the boy..."Ahh, come on," Horash implored. "I'm not very good either. Let's just play one game!" "OK, OK, one game."

Horash indeed was not very good, but he still handily beat me. His was a modest victory, and we had a pleasant chat as we played. Ruben and Lucas kept trying to sing some song together all the while. "What song are they singing?" I asked Horash. "You don't know this song!?!" he nearly screamed at me. "It's '_________!' It's by Jack Johnson! How can you not know this song!?! I can't believe you, man." I had no reply.

At 9:30 Ruben, Maneesh, and myself finally make our way to the drum show. The group, made up of 17 percussion players on different instruments, was called La Bomba del Tiempo (Time bomb) and it's self-styled description read "El trance del ritmo en estado puro" ("Rhythm's trance in its purest state"). Of course, we took it in from the street, along with scores of other people, both local and foreign, as it was too late to get in to the venue, but that was fine by me.

Monday night, and there's not much going on, so we head back to the house with the chess board. Finding myself with little to do, I watch as Guido and Maneesh play. Guido is impossibly handsome and also impossible to understand. He doesn't so much articulate words as he laughs them out of his mouth. Like Cody from Step by Step, but in Spanish.

Guido wins, and, since everyone else at the house seems to be occupied, I'm asked if I'd like to play next. I don't really want to, but I say OK. I move first. "That's a stupid way to start out the game!" Guido laughs. The game goes on for a bit...
"What are you thinking, Robert?
Don't your pawns matter to you - they're people, too, you know!
Wow. You are not very good.
When was the last time you played?
Look at me, everyone! I'm able play chess, talk on the phone with an ugly girl, smoke, and drink - All at the same time! I'm multi-tasking!"

Lucas comes over to see what all the commotion is about. "You know, he can beat you in four moves, Guido," he says. Guido laughs it off, naturally. "Whatever, boludo." I clearly don't see what Lucas is talking about; I don't give a damn either. Lucas starts to engage me in conversation as the game continues. I tell him what I'm doing here in Buenos Aires. "Oh, yeah? I already have a doctorate from the states" he tells me. His work clothes still on, though his white, fitted shirt is now unbuttoned halfway down his chest. "Nice. In what?" I ask. "Business administration? International relations?" "No, in computer programming." "Ah, cool. From where?" A dramatic pause leads to a smile of superiority: "MIT. And you should move your rook here." At which point, he moves my rook for me.

Northern Rob en el Sur

Hello, everyone! Here go some random thoughts about my first few days in Buenos Aires:

I made a conceited effort not to take a nap today. I have been suffering some sort of wicked jet lag/poor sleep scheduling since I arrived, which I believe I correctly attributed to two inter-related phenomena: 1) not getting much sleep right before and right after my arrival due to A) nerves, B) the overnight flight in from Toronto where it seemed, despite the red wine, Benadryl, and flight pillow, all was turbulence and seat belts all night long, and C) the 4 hr change in time; and 2) new found habits of A) staying up till 4 or 5 am, B) waking up after noon, and C) taking long naps between the hours of 6 and 9pm - all hours local time. BIORHYTHMS. I got away from the nap today by going to a quaint, old, traditional café called EL GATO NEGRO (THE BLACK CAT) in the early evening, where I read a recently purchased book about Ortega y Gasset and his influence on Latin America and (for, perhaps, the third time) the editor's introduction to Kant's Critique of Judgment. Maybe tomorrow I'll get past that dang introduction; although, I think the Kantian tendency to split and delineate has already affected my thinking (see above re: sleep)!

Admittedly, I have yet to really explore the city. Meaning, for me, at least, I have yet to take any public transit anywhere. It's been all on foot so far, but that's to change this week. I have, however, already purchased muchos libros (much books), with many of them related directly to the dissertation. All the book purchases stem from the fact that a nearby thoroughfare - la Avenida Corrientes - is chock-full of new/used bookstores, which is nice. Nevertheless, the bookstores themselves aren't so easy to navigate, as they seem to lack any clear order and none of the books have prices marked on them. These qualities do give the stores' employees something to do, though, as I'm always forced to ask them for help. Eh, perdón, eh, ?dónde se encuentra la sección de literatura argentina?

Something else at the end of Corrientes is the (world famous??) obelisk. As an undergrad, I once read some existentialist story about this very obelisk by an Argentine writer who was obviously affected by it and attempted to imbue the monument with some sense of personal and national angst. Perhaps there was something sexual about the obelisk in the story, too - though maybe I only see that possible signification now, in person: all ready to go with nowhere to go. Maybe this is why Argentines (or, at least, the folks in Buenos Aires, aka los porteños) are all so obsessed w/ Freud and Lacan!! Me? I was impressed, yes, but felt neither existential nor sexual. No raised malaise for this young man.

The other interesting thing about the general area around le obelisque is that it stands in the middle of what is purported to be the largest/widest city street in the world, la Avenida 9 de Julio.

I really like my current living situation. Much better than in Mexico City a couple summers back, where I stayed in a decent hotel, where I didn't go out after 8:30pm, where all I had was a shitty version of Tetris and my books. I'm staying here in BsAs with an artist couple, Leo and Daniel, they're weiner dog, Piolin, and their two cats, Domenico and ???, and they're all great. Except for the cats. When Domenico meows it sounds like a baby's cry, and that freaks me out. Anyways, Leo y Daniel are both very friendly, helpful, patient, talented, and smart. They routinely rent their spare rooms out to travelers and students. I started out with the small room - but have moved on just tonight (25.01.09) to the larger room. (I'll have more about the apartment and Leo and Daniel's artwork in a future post/email.)

One recent household blunder of mine happened just last night. I had yet to plug in the nice, JBL, i-pod compatible speakers that I had more or less stolen from my father in KC, and, as I was getting ready to go out to a party, I wanted some louder music to get me into the party mood. PARTY TIME w/ RAWBERTO WELLZ!! It was around 8:30pm, and I had just awaken from a nice nap, after all! When I plugged in the A/C adaptor for the speakers, however, an electric snap sounded and all the power went out in the apartment. I could smell the faint hint of smoke. No one else was around, so I didn't know what to do. Nor had I the cell numbers of either Leo or Daniel. Hence, I left them a note in scribbled Spanish (I couldn't see what I was writing) detailing the electrical accident and my own, personal, sunflower-designed keylight that my Grandmother gave me one Christmas, and that I had kept in my backpack ever since for moments such as this. In the end, I made it to the party, enjoyed myself, and came home to a lighted home, as L&D had come back and flipped the big switch. (1)

(By the way, I have a flickr site for my photos, too. Admittedly, the photos aren't super-iiiiiiiiinnnteresting as of yet, but that should change soon.)

Abrazos (Embraces),
Robert

(1) Hay una luz que sí se extingue: la de los baños extranjeros.