Drugstore Gaucho

How to Live in Buenos Aires, Part Whatever

2011-06-23T06:40:00.000-07:00

Another technical account of getting started up in Buenos Aires. Per my training in anthropology, I would like to whine defensively that this is based purely off of my experience living in Buenos Aires and is no way representative of what living in Buenos Aires is an standard/typical/objective sense, if such a thing could be established. A different friend informed me that he is planning to come down to live here had some questions after reading my previous posts. Therefore, I answered them and now, published them, grammatical worts and all.
Thank you.

That did help me gauge where I'll be stepping off, I think. My goal is to be down there in September. Would that be shooting myself in the foot from the get-go?

Also, who did you fly down with? I'm planning on buying a ticket this week.

What's your story with health insurance?

I don't have a TEFL certification. Is this necessary going in or could I take a class while there if necessary?

What would a good cushion be going down in terms of cash? I was hoping to have about $5000. More, less?

I'll send more questions as I think of them...

Thanks again for your help,

Benja
Good questions, some I know the answers too, otheres I will find out the answer.

As my friend Teo Valdes put it (he was teaching down here before me) somebody who was contracted for a year walks off the job on a friday in september because they felt like quitting and they can put whatever they want on their resume for the time they were down here. That institute promised to have a native teacher year round and suddenly they need someone to start monday. Its all about the money here, no one REALLY cares if the students develop a proper relationship with their teacher. In short, while the main hiring season will have officially finished, many American schools start up in september and I´m sure lots of people who were planning to have a short english teaching adventure before going to college have given their employer the bad news. Thats what I calculate anyway, I,ll try to consult some peeps.

Plane, no idea, I could ask my mom if you want. It was a graduation gift.

Tefl will definitely make you a more attractive candidate. Again, in my experience, no one really cares if you´re a good teacher or qualified for that matter, but many of them throw some acronyms on their advistement (TEFL/TOEFL/BBQOMG certified native teachers) and they want to be able to back that up. So, in my experience, no one asked to see my tefl before interviewing, although I did make sure to mention it in my resume (CV) and they did want at least a digital scan of the article after they hired me. But, no one followed up on it or otherwise verified it as far as I know, asi que, you could probably make a convincing enough facsimile and send digital images to people if it gets asked of you.

of course, that route is rather ¨argento¨. I think taking a course is a fine, if less rogueish, method. I do believe they offer month long training courses here and I believe they advertise they fact that they{ll hook you up with a job afterward. No idea if thats true. I do also believe that they give you some kind of field training, where you actually get some students and you make lesson plans that you actually execute with real ESL students. this kind of TEFl certification is seen as the most desirable, if youre looking at this as a long term investment. Sadly, i found that out from the teaching of my TEFL certification which was in the basement of a local university and definitely involved no real esl kids. So I would say, come down and take a course, if you want to take a course as it offers the most advantages.

Cushion? Brother I came down here with 2300 dollars. I live/lived pretty cheaply, but if you can find some rent outside of the usual fuck the foreigner gangbang, you could retire on that money.

In precise terms, it depends on your estimated expenditure. Going out in this city is ungodly expensive, at least relative to what you{ll earn. Drinks in a bar, food in a restaurant can set you back 200 pesos pretty easily, and thats 20 hours of work for me. Two and a half days work (I work four hours a day, so sue me). Food remains quite cheap, although inflation is imperceptibly working its magic, a weeks worth of groceries couldn{t cost 100 pesos. Meat is quite expensive actually, because Argentines will pay any price for it. I have a student who works for Southern Beef who tipped me to that bit of info. Aguante chikin, loco.

So 5000 seems like a lot of money to me. You could have quite a bit of fun between that and a job. I had a lot of costs starting up and before i got employed i think i spent almost a 1000 dollars. (Rent was 450 dollars of that) I ate out some (1 to 3 times a week) and bought wine with my girlfriend, so I wasn{t exactly bare bonsing it, but I scrimped during the week.

I hope I}m not spelling out the obvious or talking too much, but the key is to think in both dollars and pesos. I used to think only in pesos and refused to spend anything out of my savings, but I was living like a poor man in buenos aires. If anything is worse than living like a poor man in the united states, its living like a poor man in the second-world. So ive opened up my bank account to some things important to me, like tango singing classes, and hopefull, capoeira classes. A bit pricey, but what on earth am i doing in this city as a musician if I{m not learning about tango. I{m also hopefully going to start investing some of my money in rehearsal room shit for a band I want to start, pay some musicians, etc. this is a great city to start something creative up.

Health insurance, I got my fingers printed the other day, ha, so at best it would be another 1 or 2 months for me to get ¨pre pago¨which is like the nice company sponsored shit. I{m on the public plan at the moment, which involves long times, I{m told. I don{t know much more about it, except that. Part of the plan is not to get sick (bad plan, I know) but in a real emergency if it happened tomorrow, i would go to a nicer hospital and foot the bill. The heatl systems prices aren{t jacked up by malpractice insurance shit here asi que its much cheaper.

Hit me with the next round, and I believe I will publish this correspondence to my blog.

Nathan

A Letter from the Informed

2011-04-18T06:46:00.000-07:00

This is a Facebook message I wrote to a friend who was thinking about moving to Buenos Aires himself. It's funny how I respond much better to prompts than to total freedom. I blame education.

Sam old buddy, howdeedoo,

Funny you should ask a question that is so eminently on my mind.

Regarding your questions, BA is exactly how I remember it. Kind of a pain of the ass, kind of great. The moneda situation has been rememdied, the people are still short tempered, it's still over crowded and a pain to get around anywhere. The primary difference would be my economic standing now that I'm here under my own power and, more importantly, earning in pesos. But even from a dollar perspective, the city is a little rough.

Inflation has struck the city pretty hard in our absence, and food prices have also risen pretty extremely. Whereas before, on the dollar, I always said that Buenos Aires was not cheap exactly, but a surprisingly good deal considering what you were getting, now it has moved firmly into the expensive side of things. I would say prices are more generally along the lines of what you would be willing to pay in the united states if you are accustomed to living cheaply there (like an unemployed liberal arts grad for example). Randomly, some food things will be exceptionally cheap (a kilo of mandarin oranges for 75 american cents or a bundle of onions for the same) whilst other things remains inexplicably (relatively) expensive (3 dollars for 400 grams of butter, garlic for 50 cents a head). Poor college student food remains quite cheap (noodles, eggs and the like) but meat and dairy (and any interesting fruit) is pretty much american prices.

The problem is earning in pesos, and not earning very much. The English teaching market here, though perhaps the gentlest, is about as exploitative as any other based on the labor of unconnected immigrants. Jobs range in price from about 20 pesos an hour to 40+ hour (pesos). They don't seem to hard to get, although there is a large pool of applicants. Most applicants are here on some poorly founded concept of adventure and admit that to their potential employers, saying that they will only be here for 3-6 months. Humorously, are totally bewildered when they find themselves without work for the duration of their "working" vacation. Needless to say, making a serious commitment to Buenos Aires, or at least pretending to make such a commitment, is great help in getting a job. I said that I was funny in my cover letter and that appeared to be the sole basis for accepting me for an interview.

But the exploitation. I have accepted a job on the bottom end of the pay range (20 p an hour) because I am compensated for almost all of the hours that I work. Also, if I ever get around to doing the paperwork, I can be here legally, but that's a detail. I was also working at another english institute which compensated me 35 pesos an hour, which is a pretty good pay at first glance. I recently quit the job, because after some calculation, it wasn't worth it.

I received 35 pesos an hour for every hour I was in front of a class. That's fine, but I was not otherwise compensated for the time it took to prepare for these classes (which, as a novice, I can assure you is lots, especially considering how much time you end up wasting running around making copies). On top of that, the institute required a great deal more planning than what I am told is normal here. I was expected to come up with my own annual plan (based off of some textbook that were given to me) and the supplement it with certain items that, though requested specifcally, were completely left up to me to design. Two movies a school year, broken into small parts with prep and breakdown worksheets, class lessons related to cultural events from my own country (halloween, 4th of july, etc) exam design and grading, and participation in the end of school year concert and all of these things made entirely of your own hand. And they wanted us to attend two uncompensated meetings a month for which they don't even give some pesos for the subte (now 1.20 a ride) For veteran teachers, its not such a bad deal, as they might have accumulated some of their things in their experience and are probably efficient in designing such things. Also, if your passion is teaching, I'm sure you would become an expert pretty quickly. But I'm certainly not in this country to help some parents force English onto their kids and certainly not for that price.

When I told other argentines that this is what I was doing for 35 pesos an hour, their eyes bugged out and there was a moment of stunned silence, surpassing, even, the portenio ability to have a comic line for everything. Teaching is a profession notorious for the hours of work outside the paid hours of work, but for comparison, my working in the white, employed by the government teacher friends made 85 pesos an hour for their work.

And furthermore, conscious or not, English teaching jobs like these are taking advantage of Americans and other gringos who come to Buenos Aires to work. People like me are muscled into the pay range you see here by Americans who pop down here for a months, rely on their savings to pay rent and use their income for booze money. Also, the expectation that I should show up early for work, give two weeks notice or not take unexpected vacations or sick days, while normal in the anglo-world, was considered to be a enormous courtesy--or even luxury--to my employers by the Argentines to whom I described my working relationship. If they are employing me in black, then they have to understand I'm not actually obligated to do anything that they won't fire me for,

These things however, were outlined in my contract and were vocally impressed upon me by my employer. Furthermore, they rely (begrudingly, I'll say perhaps unconsciously) on the fact that teachers are unlikely to walk off the job because of emotional attachment to their students.

So I'm very happily at Wall Street where they pay me 20 pesos an hour, but I don't do anything more than wear slacks and show up and gab. And I'll get better health insurance if I file that fucking paperwork.

So, if you want to make any semi-real quantity of money here, you have to either work like a dog or work like a smart dog and get private students. Which typically pay 40+ for classes and are much easier to prepare for. The only catch is that you have to find them. I've just begun on this myself, so I can't relate how difficult it is, but like many things in Buenos Aires, I think it requires a good network of contacts.

The real game here in Buenos Aires, in turns of creating a financially stable existence, is getting your costs down. This is really hard to do in a city with such a well-developed tourist infrastructure, AKA, oiled system of separating unsuspecting yankees from their money.

Step 1 and trap 1 one is rent. Glancing at the Buenos Aires craiglist would lead you to believe that the low end of prices for rentable properties in BsAs is around 300-400 dollars a month, which will get you an apartment in a nice part of town with really nice furnishings. Further analysis of craiglist will lead you to believe that there are no unfurnished apartments available for rent in Buenos Aires and that it is customary to describe rent in a ratio of dollars to the week or day.

If you're lucky, one day you describe this to a guy from the city and he says "No!" emphatically and tells you for that kind of money you could have a 1 bedroom apartment all to yourself, if you were just willing to live outside of all these fancy districts you had just mentioned to him. What your friend doesn't know and what you just realized is that no one advertises these sorts of properties to foreigners. So the lesson there is that any international or english language resources are going to break your piggy bank, to speak politely.

The most conventional way to rent property is to look in a the newspaper on saturday and see the properties listing, which can be dizzying in terms of contractions and argot. Sadly, most properties require something called a garantia, which means someone with property in the city vouches for the fact that you can pay, and if you don't pay, the will. Foreigners (and many Argentines) don't typically have a garantia.

So the search is limited somewhat to "alquila due~no" which means that the owner is renting the property and doesn't have an agency (inmobilaria) representing him. There you cut out a very expensive middleman, and may eliminate the garantia. May. It does cut down your options quite a bit and requires a lot of cold-calling and trial and error.

Being that there are a ton of argentines and foreigners milling about the city with garantia, there are some services on the internet that have surfaced to help them. comparto depto, solo duenos and a number of internet resources attempt to organize the barbaric latino horde. But its a decidedly web 1.0 affair, there is no central website and information is often out of date or false and posted by a scheming inmobilario that hopes to interest you in another, probably less perfect property. It's pretty gruesome and requires ALOT! of legwork, but this is probably the best option for an unconnected foreigner arriving in the city. But it takes a lot of time. A few conversations I've had with other strapped-for-cash argentines revealed that they spend several months searching for an apartment before finding something that suits their needs. The difference is that they can rely on social capital and live with their parents or friends where as people like you and me Sam, have far less social capital to spend.

Other options include subletting a single room from a family apartment or something like that. But that was a relationship I was definitely not comfortable with, although it might have been wiser in a purely economic mindset. Those arrangements are somewhat easy to find and can be a rock bottom price (500 pesos a month, ideally) but are usually somewhat expensive and its usually done by people used to working with foreigners (1000 pesos a month).

For my part, I have worked what little contacts I have made here in the city and came up with the place I am now in. It's 900 pesos a month for a small (perhaps 3 by 5 or 6 meters) concrete box on the roof of a very large house that is shared by a number of other argentines, one chileno and one peruvian. The room itself is pretty shitty and definitely doesn't deserve the 900 pesos I pay for it. It has no insulation, doesn't block the sound of the nearby highway and I have to go down a flight of stairs to use the bathroom that I share with 3 other people. But, it's cheap as I could find

that gave me any level of autonomy, and I like the neighborhood, which is safe and cheap (Boedo) and its been fun living with all the people in the house. Plus, I can practice trombone and I don't bother anyone. And the roof, (kind of like my patio, is enormous and cool)

After rent, its just learning how to live in the city and limit expenses, but I haven't found that to be too challenging. Use public transportation, save taxis for emergencies, don't eat out often, buy alcohol at liquor stores, not in bars, etc etc.

And I think that's as complete an answer as I can give. Ah, yes, one more important piece of advice. Take all advice with a grain of salt! Too many times I've gotten advice from foreigners who've spent what seemed like a long enough time in the city to be hip, only to find out that these idiots are still paying 400 dollars in rent, or have split a 2 bedroom apartment between 5 people to make ends meet. Other gringos can be more helpful than argentines in many ways, but only gringos who themselves are not morons. Although I only have some 9-10 months of experience of buenos aires all added together, I appear to be a lot smarter than the average gringo bear. People who know as much as me about the city usually have been here at least 2 years.

Yeah, so that's a complete answer. Hope you actually read it!

Right, Right Now

2011-03-24T04:50:00.000-07:00

Hey.

Been awhile, Drugstore-fans, hasn't it?

Right now, I'm sitting at the table in the kitchen of the same house that I was staying in when we last met. It was somewhat freezing when I woke up this morning in the concrete box of mine on the roof, so I went to where I am now to seal up the kitchen and use the oven, thereby creating my own personal summer.

I'm making banana bread, that wonderful method by which my mother prevented the waste of bananas. Of course, here, they don't recognize this as bread, so much as they recognize is as "budin," which I take to be somehow related to pudding. The nice thing about that is that it does give lie to the idea that banana bread might somehow be healthy, being that it is not, containing more sugar than all of the export of the Dominican Republic.

I have successfully completed what I imagined to be the 0th and 1st stages of my plan here in Buenos Aires. In stage 0, I came to Buenos Aires, resumed with most of my old contacts and make temporary arrangements to live. Now completing stage 1, I have found means for what I believe to be sustainable living. I am paying 900 pesos a month in rent, which I tell myself is not a bad price for how nice the house I am living in is. I have also found work at two english institutes which gives me a fixed income of about 3000 pesos a month. This will be month which comes with a full "paycheck" (cash in an envelope) so I expect to be able to pay a month's rent without using my savings and have enough left over to eat and even spend on meals at restaurants.

There are a few problems. The job I like pays only 20 pesos an hour, is located in the most-loathed downtown of Buenos Aires, and it forces me to wear nice pants and shirt. Irritation aside, this will make a significant increase in my expenses for dry cleaning, and in a country where text messages are a quarter a pop (1 peso), you can never really tell what's going to be expensive and what's not.

In my other job, I make 35 pesos an hour, I can wear T-shirt and jeans, and is only a 30 minute walk from my home. Sadly, it puts me into daily contact with the most hated thing in Christendom. Small, energetic children and requires me to work much time outside of the hours that they actually pay me. And worse, despite the fact that she is a thin and tall dark-skinned woman who appears to be about 25 years old, my boss is more interested in making sure I do the things they pay me for than flirting with me. As only taxi-drivers in Buenos Aires seem to grasp, there is nothing more terrible than having a beautiful lady-boss who is actually expects you to show up to work on time. Nay! Early, even.

The other problem as I am transitioning out of stage 1 is that stage makes it somewhat impossible to get to the point where I'm spending most of my time involved with music and saving some money. The job that pays me better (and is some 2000 of my 3000 pesos) is from 5:30-8:30 or 9:30 M-TR. My other job is daily (except sunday) from 10-2 or 10-4. As you may notice this leaves me precious little time to do those important things like find people to hire me as a trombonist, find trombone students or english students, or do any of the things that I wanted to do while I was here, like compose, or start a webcomic. Oh, or eat or sleep.

I have recently asked that half my hours with the little latino bastards from hell be stricken from my schedule, which will hopefully give me some time to prepare the next stage while maintaining a baseline income.

Regarding housing: I appear to be doing better than most foreigners to whom I speak. And everyone's rent in the house got hiked, so I'm now paying the least rent! Schaudenfreude, methinks. But it does make me look like a spaz, though, I may still be paying much above what the thing is actually worth.

Ja ne, friends.

As of late

2011-02-18T20:02:00.000-08:00

There's so much to say. Where have I been, what have I been doing? I know you'd like to know, or you wouldn't be reading.

How I wish I could Twitter every little inane thought that comes into my head and every strange happening that happens to me.

For instance, the other day, I read about the saying here, its free to dream or dreaming is free, or whatever. And then I halfway managed to execute the phrase with one of my housemates and he taught me to use it more better. Then yesterday, I bought a scratchpad to write on and I remarked to myself that to dream is free, but to write it down costs 5 and 1/2 pesos.

The last month or so has been so totally dedicated to finding a job and getting an apartment/place to stay. I like to think that I did good job exerting myself towards the goals, a commendable effort when its so difficult to chart progress. I often thought or writing a blog post solely about doing these things in Buenos Aires. I guess you're looking at the paragraph that that has become. Anyway, lonely wanderer of the internet, here is how to find a cheap place to stay in Argentina.

Forget Craigslist. Americans use Craiglist, and Argentines know it. The only things you'll find on Craigslist are those some hopeful Argentine has put up thinking that some rich Yankee will overpay for. Use American resources and you'll get booted onto the merry-go-round of Argentine for export. And let me tell you that Argentines don't pay those prices.

Don't expect Couchsurfing or anything the like to be a whole lot better. Yeah, that website is supposed to be about people helping each other out, but the fact is Argentines in tight financial situations often rent out a room in their house to get some breathing room. Having little idea how to do this, the ask their friends and someone says, hey why not this website couch surfing, and they open a profile pretty much for the purpose of getting someone to help pay their rent (probably more than 50%, I'm betting).

This is how it works in Buenos Aires, and this is why you're screwed: people ask their friends to help them find a place to stay. That's how everything works in Buenos Aires. This town is more italian than spaghetti. You need the friend of a friend of somebody's uncle's mechanic who knows a guy who knows a guy that's renting out an apartment. And even, that doesn't guarantee you a good deal, it just admits the possibility of a good deal, which Craigslist can not do.

But here's an example of just how necessary it is to know somebody. One day I go to the real estate office and ring the bell. A lady comes to the barred door and asks me what I want. I tell her that I'm looking for a temporary rentals (that's less than than two years, the standard Argentine contract) she says that don't have any and I get the sense that the conversation is supposed to be done. I ask if she knows anyone that might have such a rental and she says that she wouldn't know in this neighborhood. I then took my leave.

Then after some beer-assisted schmoozing in my friendly neighborhood machine shop, I'm directed to the wife of a retired guy that sometimes comes around to drink beer. I see her and there occurs one of those magical spanish conversations where I seem to understand all of the words but really come away with nothing from the conversation. Except, better than nothing, she tells me of a real estate agency where she knows someone and where the might have temporary rentals. She writes down the name Alba, her name, on a scrap of paper along with the address of someplace she thinks they might rent me.

I follow her vague directions and wind up at, guess what, the same real estate agency I had been at but a few days ago. I ring, the some women answers in the same way, behind the barred door and I read off my scrap "Uh... I was sent by a women named Alba. She s-"

"OH! Alba! Yes! Come in! Come in!" And this lady proceeds to actually do what a real estate agenct is supposed to do. Show me real estate. I managed to communicate to her in her flurry of helpfulness that actually I'm looking for a temporary rental and that maybe this place that Alba had suggested to me might be available. The real estate agent says unfortunately they just rented that place and that I should check out some of the two year rentals cause "Hey, things can be arranged". A few days go by and she calls my on my cell phone and lets me know of a "couple" looking for someone to live with them. I check it out and its an actual house (almost, duplex) with beautiful furnishing and all. My own, somewhat large private room with my own bathroom and carte blanche from the owners to have my girlfriend over and generally have my run of the house. (Incidentally, the couple is a gay one as he quickly informed me at the beginning of the house checking out process). And all that for a mere 1000 pesos. 250 murkan dollars. For how nice that house was, its a very good price.

For the record, there do exist actual independent housings for that price. I saw one studio apartment for 800 pesos plus some expenses that would make it nearly 1000 pesos. It was a small square with a bathroom and one window which pointed to inside the building, a "courtyard" view. That is to say the column of air that was built into the design so that the residents wouldn't suffocate. It also came with a fridge and oven. I would have taken it, had it not required a two year contract and a "garantia". (Some property owner vouches for you. If you don't pay, they do.)

Anyway, nowadays I'm paying 900 pesos for a little concrete box on a roof of what used to be a mansion for the living of an extended family. What I do like about my situation is that I can practice trombone and not bother anyone, that the facilities of the house are good (kitchen, etc) and that its populated exclusively by other bohemians, not the owners. I dislike sharing a house with someone who is renting a space out to me. (What's with that vibe? "I will rent you this room and let you use my kitchen." C'mon, really?) Oh, and finally, that its 225 murka dollars a month.

What I do not like about my living situation is that the concrete box turns into a solar oven around 2 pm, the highway is nicely audible 24/7 and that one of the residents of the house is guitar banging rock and roller with stamina matched only by an out-of-tune Apollo with highly accented English.

I am tired now. I go to bed. Maybe next time I talk about employment.

Beer, Community

2011-01-24T12:43:00.000-08:00

Regarding My Sobriquet, Yanki and Associated Questions of Geography

2011-01-18T09:35:00.000-08:00

"To a foreigner, a Yankee is an American.
To an American, a Yankee is a Northerner.
To a Northerner, a Yankee is a New Englander.
To a New Englander, a Yankee is a Vermonter.
To a Vermonter, a Yankee is someone who still has an outhouse."

Everyone in a spanish speaking country has a nickname. Un apodo. So it seems, anyway.

Mine is yankee. Except written yanki and pronounced shan-kee, due to the eccentricities of pronunciation here around the Rio Plata.

Many people believe that this word is "despectiva" which I take to mean disrespectful. I tell them that it´s not and that the only time I´ve ever heard the word was mainly in the song Yankee Doodle, which does not cause me a feeling of disrespectedness, to say the least.

Then I realized I´ve never really been to the South and I found this quote, which I assume to be something in general usage. Teo? As a guy from the midwest, I said to myself self, huh, well I guess the word can refer to me. Now I realize that maybe a southerner might resent the word. And NOW I realize that perhaps my attitude towards the word is a typical midwestern reaction towards anything and the southern reaction is similarly stereotypical.

Also, I prefer the term yanki because its a pretty complicated to get into politics surrounding the use of the word American to describe citizens of the United States of America. In case you don´t know, anyone else (except maybe Canadians, I haven´t spoken to one, you tell me) living in the Americas feels like the word American should refer to anyone living on the continent. Ha, yes, thats right. THE continent. From my experience, most people believe that the terms North and South America refer to two extremities of the same object. Terms of direction rather than distinction. Nicholas?

Did you ever think that might disagree on something such as the number of continents in the world? I mean, yeah it occurred to me, I studied anthropology, I´ll accept anything as possible. But usually its something like the number of colors or vowels, things that we ourselves make. Cultures with two colors? Conceivable (the WASP male for example recognizes two colors Statistically Speaking, Probably Will Match (tan, cream, black, white grey and khaki) and Statistically Speaking, Probably Will Not Match (everything else).

But my aside aside, people I´ve asked have reported there to be five continents or six, depending on if they´re anticipating my yankee belief in America as two continents in order to fight with me on the topic. So, even in the most continent-generous interactions I´ve had on the subject, we are still short of the typically taught seven continents. Turns out that don´t include
Antartica. Meg? Can we get a statement on all this?

Another term they throw at me in their efforts to avoid something that my yanki brain will identify as offensive is "norteamericano." While broadly accurate, I can not accept this word on principle. I have no problem being grouped with our lovely, more internationally accepted neighbors to the north (though they probably do), but I´m troubled by the fact that Mexicans are excluded from this groupation*.

So, then the the exclusion appears to be one primarily of linguistic or racial division. It´s nice to know (in a we´re both lacking sort of way) that the south of the border geographic attitude of Americans is in someway reciprocated.

There does exist the word "estadounidense" which surely was invented to punish english-speaking hispanophones. The word is baroque piece of booby trap, practically leaking with common points of ensnarement for the unknowing yankee. It´s long, its got that fucking O in it, its got that fucking D in it and on top of that, because its literal translation sounds goofy as balls. I´m not convinced this is a passable way to refer to once self. Unitedstater? Unitedstatist? C´mon.

So, that leaves me with Yanki, something I gladly accept. I like the idea of introducing myself in away that causes the person on the other end of the introduction to blink and hesitate a little. Hey, I´m speaking in another language that I didn´t study til I was way past my critical period. I´m always off-footed, they can stand to be off-footed for the first round. Furthermore, I think it helps them get to know me a little faster. I am the sort of guy that would gleefully refer to himself as a spic if that term at all referred to me. Though that term is a little strong, reletive to yanki. No one has ever shouted yanki at me while pointing a gun at me and crafting draconian legislation to ruin my life

Anyway, drugstore yanki, signing off.

*This blog will still occasionally include formations of words which should not occur in English but do in Spanish for the sake of whimsy and what I like to call "local color".

The Compromise

2011-01-08T09:42:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome back.

This blog is ready to begin in seriousness, once again, as I am back in America of South in the country of Argentina.

This means a return to form in many ways, there will be a grand detailing of my adventures and misadventures, boring report of my success, hilarious recounting of my failure. There will be many awkward sentences that are born of a Spanish thought straying into my author´s consciousness and gumming up the flow as I awkwardly latinize words into existence that ought not to exist or throw phrasal verbs into the path of oncoming formal sentence structures, terminating in a little self-reference that hopes to excuse what is otherwise an unforgivable run-on?

But what is different? Will it be different? Or will it be just more of the same DrugstoreGaucho, that dark-hatted figure, silhouetted in the doorway of adventure? The same guy that threw himself to the rapacious lions (first writing, loins) of the gay argentine dance club? That stalwart fellow that walked countless kilometers, trombone in hand, to return and give legend of the night´s travails?

The truth is that it may or may not be. I am still who I am but I´m not who I was. No doubt my battles with public transportation will still hilariously continue, but I am no longer the college junior who happily frittered away his time in Argentina, putting every experience under the language-learning column in his mental budget. I have bathed in the unchartable waters of introspection that lap against the shores of college-land and emerged wet. Very wet. Downright soggy. I know that if I don´t focus my efforts on something that instead I will do nothing. There´s not even a course catalog to help me fill out my schedule anymore. I am both the guy in the desk and at the chalkboard.

Overblown imagery aside, I´m not here to learn Spanish anymore, I´m here to play music and live the dream. Obliterate dichotomy, I couldn´t decide if what I wanted to do was to skip through the world like a good Taoist or make something of myself like a good ambitious twenty two year old, so I´m doing both. I´m here in a foreign land, living a life unknown to some, with strange food and custom (well kind of, anyway) satisfying my itch to see the unfamiliar. But I´m not sitting in a grass hut counting the beetles on my laptop keyboard, I´m in Buenos Fucking Aires. I have one of the greatest city´s in the world at my disposal. If you can make it here, you can probably make it New York!

Here there are the resources I need for any project I undertake. If I write a chart, I can find a studio and the musicians to record it, if I make a comic, there are people to read it. For whatever reason, I´ve fallen in with a wonderfully strange and strangely wonderful group of whackos and creatives who also seem to feel a need to make something worthwhile while living the life bizarre. I feel like this is a good place for me to be right now.

Of course, this is somewhat of an explanation drawn from events that have already happened. I´m not sure if I offered this to the me from a few months ago, the guy twiddling his thumbs in dough, that he would be convinced enough to choose to go to Argentina. But this self is contented in the explanation.

Now this self will find a job and a place to stay so that he can go about being un bicho raro.

Consumption vs. Production Part I

2010-12-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

Like I've said before, I've been at home lately--for more time than I have been since high school. I still consider myself an adventurer (and the real adventure will resume at the end of the month, Argentina bound) but I think I've been adventuring in new territory still, territory unused to the inquisitive stomp of my jackboots (purely figurative, I still wear flip flops everywhere).

That territory is American society. Honestly, I would be skeptical of anyone that claims to be "adventuring" in their own society, but frankly my own interactions with nearly everyone and everything I come into contact to have such a sense of novelty and unfamiliarity it makes me recall vividly the experience of being in another country. On top of that, I am most definitely isolated from the bulk of society by my current living situation. I live by myself and can claim no strong connections to any of the social fixtures of society. I go to a jam session once a week where the other participants have usually forgotten my name in the intervening week and play table top games with a host of nerds whose names I have difficulty remembering at the local gaming store. I don't watch TV, another massive way in which it seems Americans can relate to each other, except for Univision, the hispanic channel, which I don't really pay attention to anyway, and I meet precious few Latinos with whom I can chat about the happenings in that day's telenovela.

Hell, the video games I play are at least five years old (check out my other blog/project www.bigboxofgames.blogspot.com) adding to my feeling that the last time I was truly interlocked with society around me, I was in high school.

Furthermore, I am leaving in a month for overseas (over the Gulf of Mexico anyway) and this seems to cause many people's interest in me to be cut short. I am a temporary fixture for them. It could be coincidence or an observation born of isolation and paranoia, but the new social connections I have made are ones to whom I avoided mentioning that I was leaving the country.

So, hopefully, I can claim some of the authority I usually wield as an outsider in issuing claims about the world around me. The claim I'd like to make in this writing is something that has been on my mind since graduating from college.

When I went to college, I had hoped that I would end the part of my life where I was absorbing, or preparing (those being the terms I described it to myself). I felt this way through and about my writing in particular. In school, we were learning tools and things to improve our writing; we discussed why the techniques of some writers seemed to work and why some didn't. Our own writings were primarily written explorations of these discussions. I had hoped that at college, we would be encouraged to produce our own ideas and writings rather than continue to dissect the existing ideas of dead or tenured men. Needless to say, this was one of the many disappointments of college. It was, as I thought of it, to be another period of absorption. Ultimately, I was dissatisfied. When was the period of time that I would be "emitting"?

I was assured, at the end of college, like I was at the end of high school, like I was at the end of middle school, that this was something that would occur at the next stage of education. As you can imagine, I was somewhat skeptical of this claim at this point. And viewing my age-mates move through grad school, I feel like my skepticism was justified. (Too be sure, they are being given the reins, but slowly, bit-by-bit and only after those who would guide the cart elsewhere have been weeded out).

As my latest explorations have revealed to me, this tendency to absorb rather than emit reaches beyond the confines of academia. Every where I look around me, I see people caught up in particular varities of absorption and rarely involved in the making of what they are using. We go to the theater, but we don't act, we watch the movies, but we don't know how to work a camera, we love to read, but can't write, love music but don't sing, or can't even pluck a guitar. We love to eat, but we can't cook, we love chase scenes and action movies but can't do skid turns or know how to fire a gun. We watch sports but we don't play them. The list goes on and on.

I realized at some point in my meditiations that my battle with absorption would be better be described with one of hoary grandfather words used by the dissedents of American society: consumerism.

Reprinted From an Old Notebook

2010-10-15T17:22:00.000-07:00

I've been cleaning my room looking for my passport and I came across a notebook from nearly early high school with a few things in it. This appeared to be addressed to a friend of mine with whom I sometimes discussed such matters. I don't think I ever deemed it worthy enough to show her. It's interesting how perception changes as we get older. Given, I'm emboldened to present this by my ability to present it as an anthropological document and thereby distance myself from the contemplative fourteen-year-old who thought it would never see the light of day. I guess the difference between me then and me now is that then I thought putting quotes around the phrase "the system" would allow me to employ such deliciously general terminology. Now I know that a Ph.D and wordy introduction full of oblique references to other wordy, oblique-reference making Ph.D's introductions is really what you have to do to get your terminology of choice taken seriously.

I don't think its really unfair for the author (me) of this document to refer to "the system". For all of his (my) life, he (I) had been continuously in the care of one, unitary system--the educational system. Personally, I think the central observation he (I) makes (make), that we're conditioned to pursue specific stimuli as rewards and how we continue to pursue these even after graduation, is insightful and relevant even if it is coded in language which sounds more Angry Young Man than wise professor.

I was tempted to clean up the language, play a few word games and transmute the content into the cautious, non-committal language I'd seen on display in the works of modern academic writers.

But I've rejected, for today at least, the frightened, little language that typified what populated the pages of my reading in college. What, really, is the difference between "could be interpreted as" and "is"? Word count. And cowardice.

I, for one, found beauty in the invented yet apt terminology which the author (me) bandies about and refreshment in the overall honesty of the writing. I think he (I) offers as good a theory on the origin and effects of consumerism as anyone else does and does the reader the service of sounding like he actually believes in what he's saying.

And even if he (I) is full of shit, it was an interesting to see how he became me. Today, I wouldn't be caught dead saying something like "the system" even if it did have quotes around it. But a lot of what I still believe about the world is reflected in this writing, I just wouldn't ever let it get to the page in this form. Maybe the difference is just word count. Or cowardice.

Alright, Tiffanie. My problem with "the system" is this. These people that chase things that don't matter, the chasers, will not be happy chasing. I agreed with you when you said so, but now that I have thought about it, I see differently. I think thats what I was thinking when I labeled them chasers, but forgot to say so.

My issue with the system is not about the chasers. Its that so many people are screwed over before they are given a chance. Before you even think that the new system won't work because of parents, hear me out the entire way.

First, the system in place is perfect at its job of creating a certain kind of person. The problem is the person it wants is a chaser. Throughout schooling we reach for things that don't matter. In kingergarten, a gold star, 4-9 a good grade, maybe inkling of social stuff, too. 9-12 its all about GPA which might as well be an acronym for Gold Star.

Why do we chase these things? Well, we don't chase them naturally, we are taught to do so. "Fine," I can hear you say, if you feeling open-minded, "why are we taught to chase these things. Because the mysterious "they" can give us nothing in return for our work. Gold Stars are 99 cents for 10,000 but we still take one for bending over in class or giving your boss at work a great presentation.

We could demand more.

Instead of giving us something honest-to-god good the mysterious "they" needed to give us something "cheaper," not as important. From that, various gold stars were thought up.

Problem: we don't take the gold stars, they're worthless and we know it.
Solution: Teach us they mean something more. But in order to do that, they got to teach us to want these things while we are young.

That is what the system is doing. Why? Because if we stopped wanting gold stars, they would be forced to give us something "real." What "real" is doesn't matter. The "Real" is not in short supply, the "they" doesn't use it. But the reason they won't give us the "real" is cause they can't control how much real they give away. But they can control the flow of gold stars. And guess what? Control means power.

Power is some kind of "real." Its the kind that we know the most about. It's the kind that we know for sure how to get. And they "they" doesn't want to lose this,. Thus, we must be kept asking for gold stars, instead of the "real."

That's why they want chasers, to stay productive.

The Germanically efficient machine is squelching the kids that can get the "real" in its pursuit of the chasers.

The kids that can chase and look for real get by, but there are so few of them and they are not as good as the kids who don't have to chase. So what happens to the real-seekers, the realists? They who cannot chase at all, and/or probably some of the best realseekers, will commit suicide. They can't deal with the demands for chasing, they lose.

The next in line of real-seekers, the ones that can chase a little, too--they'll make it. But after they've made it, they'll never collect enough gold stars to make anyone notice their real.

Next is the group that excels at chasing and has some real-seaking ability, as well. These people will make it relatively easily; get into a good position to where their real could do some good, but alas they don't have enough real to do it.

And finally comes the best chasers. This is the tragic part. Remember the first group which could only get real; they died. Now this group which will only get gold stars, they will prosper and do well. The best chasers would be the favorites of the mysterious "they". There could be a last class, a class with so much real, they completely focus on it and they can ignore the pressure to chase. These people won't care at all about the gold stars and the gold stars won't matter to them. They'll revel in their real and not worry about the ones that can't find any.

My issue with the system is that the system is not right. Quote me on that. I hate the system because it is practically immoral. It rewards the wrong people, it gives its gifts and prosperity to the people that don't matter and its killing the people that do. A slight exaggeration. People may wonder why there hasn't been an American Socrates or another earth-shaking philosopher. Frankly, they wouldn't make it past high school, they'd commit suicide, or close up and forget about other people like that last group.

If by some chance they did make it, they would be ignored by a society that associates all things positive with gold stars.

Not only am I upset cause the people who deserve the best are getting the worst, but because no one is being made truly happy by the system. The gold stars aren't making us happy. We think they will because that's what we're taught. But the best chasers isn't pleased with his stars. A billion placebos will not do what one pill would. So its not just selfish reasons, I wish for everyone to be happy and I wish the good rewarded and the bad punished. The system accomplishes neither so in the tradition of 1000 rappers and a googol of rebels:

Down with the system!

The Direct Excercise of Power

2010-09-30T19:56:00.000-07:00

This post won't be about travel, I think, which would make it somewhat of a diversion from my standard. But the real goal of all the traveling that I d0, aside from eat and peruse the local fauna, is provoke thought.

My thoughts have been provoked a lot here in Kansas City. Over the last four years, I have picked up and set down many, many times. Finish high school, move all my things to Wisconsin get upset about leaving home, spend 8 weeks there, come down for Thanksgiving, two more in Wisco, then Christmas, three weeks at home, then 10, 1 week in Kansas City, 10 at school. Come back for the summer, get upset about leaving school. Go back to school, skip Thanksgiving, spend time at school, come home for winter break, wonder where all the people have gone, go back to school, get confused about where home is, go back to school go to California for spring break. 10 weeks at school, one week in Kansas City. 6 months in Argentina, 4 with one host family, 2 with another. Get upset about leaving Argentina. Come back to Kansas City, spend Christmas plus some at home go back to school in Wisconsin, no longer feels like home. Spend time at school, come home for the summer. Go back to school for 10 weeks there, 3 weeks for Christmas, 21 weeks for school spending spring break at school again. Graduate, come home, go to camp, travel Minneasota, visit mom in Pennsylvania, is that home? Go to Kansas City.

Reflecting while I write, I can still keep track of why I was upset to leave a certain place and see how friends and girlfriends stretch across certain changes in geography and time and other times they don't.

I tried to explain to someone the other day why everything around me seemed so worthy of intense observation even though it was so familiar to me. Hell, I grew up here, I used to say I was sick of being in the Midwest and in being in Kansas City. Pre-sensing the reflection I am having now, I justified my interest in my surroundings by pointing out that I hadn't been in the same place for more than nine months in the last four years, thinking of the usual length of the scholastic calendar. Now I can see that A) my scholastic calendar is punctuated by abrupt and lengthy breaks that require me to relocate and B) that actually, my stay in Argentina exceeds any stint at home or at school for the last four years. Small wonder I feel drawn to return.

So, the part of me that craves novelty is slightly fascinated in the prospect of something it hasn't seen in years (albeit, only four, but at 22 years old that still seems like quite the length of time). This novelty--so exotic, so alluring--is routine.

Yesterday, I was working in the garden of a very generous friend who compensated me far beyond what my skill level would require and I noticed that it was no longer hot. In fact, I needed a light jacket. The changing of seasons. With the exception of Argentina, where I would not have fixated on something as subtle as the changing of the seasons, I haven't been in one place long enough to really observe a shift in season. Fluctuating between Kansas City and Wisconsin, the Lower Midwest (I prefer Southern Midwest, actually) and the Upper, changes in the environment were magical and relatively instantaneous. I'm magically transported from the zephyrous early summer/late spring of Wisconsin to the angry heat of Kansas summer. Or worse yet, the variety in location obscured any reason or schedule motivating changes of temperature around me. Such as when I go from Kansas City's winter to Wisconsin, from a light winter to the dead of winter. All I had to do was sit down in an aluminum tube for a few hours and then walk out of the tube into refrigerator turned many degree's lower than the other refrigerator I was in.

So, on one hand this emerging routine (or prospect of a routine, I should say. I really would need to get a job before I can really begin to say anything about a routine) is novel and therefore delights the part of me that believes new experience is the best experience and promotes the most enjoyment and growth. On the other hand, I vaguely recall dire warnings and fail-safes I set within myself at the end of high school, a time which marked the end of a lifetime of routine and academic regimentation. I can hear echoes of my 17-year old self returning from Japan, flush with the sense of power that only a credit card and a train station full of possibility can instill, as he stares dumbly at a person who berates him for showing up late to class, a class that he himself didn't really select.

But these cries are distant, I do not feel them in the way that I once did. I remember them. Now the question is, is it wiser to heed remembered warnings or to satisfy the urges that I now feel instead of worshipping at the altar of my past ideals?

I'm tempted to "make my way in the world". I don't mean get a job, I mean make a job, make a difference. On some level I think that I feel a desire to carve out a little something of this world for myself, instead of bouncing from lily pad to lily pad. I want to create something that I can stand on and say look at me and my perch that I raised with my own two hands, my website, or my animation or my band or my compositions, my papers, my theories. Incredibly, there is something satisfying about sinking a year of my life into making something where there used to be nothing.

But the Buddhist in me cries against these desires. It seems to me that the sensation of pride of ownership one gets from creating their own business, putting forth their own theory or forming their own band is a close cousin of the well-known consumer sins of loving a fancy house, car or plasma screen TV.

The foucauldian in me sees that the similarity between these two things is power. Possessions are a symbol of wealth which is synonymous with power. The exercise of academic muscle, the creation of a website or a band are also ways of demonstrating or creating power. I think to myself, "With a website I could..." or "If I had a successful youtube series then people would..."

I guess, in part, I reject these pursuits of power because of Master Yoda, an independent study in Taoism and a Buddhist sixth grade teacher. A Jedi doesn't crave adventure or excitement, or wealth or power, either, if I remember the extended universe correctly. What would I do with power anyway? Power can't do anything about life that is really important. It can't turn back the clock, stop death or make you happy. Mo' money, mo' problems--the refrain of the guitarist from my hip hop band that never made a dime.

I should admit that I've never been at a loss for power in my life. Being a 6'4" white two-hundred pound male from a supportive upper middle class family in America, I have rarely in my life experienced actual powerlessness. Maybe saying I don't think I need power is like being a fish that says he doesn't really need water. I may not have any clue just how much I would miss the power I'm not even aware that I already have.

Two days ago, my sense of my own power became the focus of my observations. A girl struck my head in capoeira in order to demonstrate that I was not guarding my face. Physical violence is the most direct exercise of power. I realized that no one had challenged my power in such a way before. Normally I shrug off the indirect displays of power--wealth, prestige. It's a game I can always say I'm not interested in playing. Psychologists might say that that growing up bigger than everyone else never made cars and possessions very attractive to me. My power is manifest, I don't need to do anything to feel powerful.

But here was this girl who hit me in the head. I decided to ignore it just the same as when my 14 year old cousin used to hit me when she was little, but for some reason, in the moment of this encounter, this decision stuck in my mental throat like an unchewed tortilla chip and I bobbled the next steps of the drill. Then, I mulled over my decision not to strike back for a day and some. Was this a display of power that mattered? Was this actual exercise of power somehow more real than the power I simply felt that I had manifest? Did this girl think that her level of power somehow exceeded or equalled mine?

I fear that my thoughts on the topic mean that I'm actually only unconcerned about power as long as its clear that I am the most powerful.

If that's true, it's my instinct to crush this impulse. A Jedi desires not these things. Maybe the key to happiness is to flee the things that entice us because deep down we know that their promises are false.

I don't have any answers. I just have a really long post on my travel blog, not about travel. But it impacts my decision to travel. Do I want power? What about desiring power? Will it bring me ruin, satisfaction? A creative mixture? One thing seems to clear to me, though. (I'd actually like to be wrong on this point) Travelling will not give me a website, a band, an animation, or least of all, power.

What's a 22 year old to do?

Word Limit

2010-08-18T09:44:00.000-07:00

So, I failed to report on the last leg of my journey. So I shall make a brief description of the events that transpired. This description will be aided by photos, as I took them and took the time to plug in my camera. And Yulie complained that my few posts are far too long. Therefore, I will provide a narrative of my trip using the grammatical/pictorial style of a little Japanese women whose first language isn't exactly English.

I went to Rhode Island and I was excited cause they have lots of

And I wanted to eat some:

As well as

All Thanks to:

And, also, I didn't:

Cause when you're raised in Kansas when you think of:

You think of:

Which makes you wanna:

Peruvians

2010-08-08T13:38:00.000-07:00

So, I've been in Jersey for some time now. I'm doing the leg of my trip where I go visit my mom's arm of the country and I go back and forth between her residence in Clinton, NJ, her place of work in Allentown, PA and whatever adventure may be had in those parts.

I'll talk a little more about Allentown once I have some real adventure there. If you can't wait, check out another post on this blog, here:

This weekend, I was afforded the opportunity to go New York and make the acquaintance of the Gabriel Alegria Afro-Peruvian Jazz Sextet via seeing them play in their club on Friday and then, on Saturday morning, go with them on a trip to the Litchfield jazz festival in Connecticut.

This, seems like a pretty slick plan, and credit where its due, thanks mom, for putting that one together.

Howwwwwever, there was a little glitch. You see, I was supposed to go hear them play in NYC Friday at 8 in Tutuma, their club, and then Saturday at 7:30 AM, at that club, I would join them on their bus.

Problem being what to do between 8 pm and 7:30 am. Ideally, I would get a lodging somewhere cheap and in the area. However, the swanky jazz club is of course located in a nice part of Manhattan, meaning that there is nowhere cheap nearby at all. And even willing to travel a great distance, cheap places were often straight impossible; it is New York in the summer, the few hostel environments (ahyuck)were certainly probably checked out.

I mean, if they weren't normally, they certainly were when I decided to start wondering where I would stay around 5:00 pm on the way to the club to hear the band.

And of course, I pretty much needed to be in Manhattan so that I could actually make it to the club in the morning. And forget crashing at a friends place, who on earth would I know, So, I'm in a pretty tight spot.

But then, epiphany strikes me like me a girlish slap to the face. I remembered that one of my friends had recently moved to New York and, my some whimsy of a humor-loving god, in Manhattan.

The good lord does smile upon me and I may stay in her gentrified harlem lodging.

Which is some 80 blocks from the place I need to be at 7:30 in the morning, but hey, at least I'm in the borough.

PAUSE

Okay, some shit has has happened between this post and my present, therefore I must give you a truncated edition cause we all need to move on with our lives.

Suffice to say, despite my bonehead move, going to New York without a place to stay, and the fact that I was supposed to spend 7:30 am to 12:30 am with some reputedly hard-drinking Peruvians at the Litchfield Jazz Festival, I had a great time.

I met a dude named Huevito (literally "Eggy") who could make the most sweet music by banging on a box. That's the short story anyway. Despite seeming like a wild-man intuitive musician, he could stop carrying on like a hyper eight year old long enough to shoot off about the Andalucian roots of a particularly variety of Peruvian
tap dance.

And blah blah, my brother's going to India, I'm gonna hang out.

Peace

Playing Catch-Up

2010-08-04T14:10:00.000-07:00

We're not in Minneapolis anymore Toto.

But before I go into my latest travels, I should probably finish that chapter of the saga.

I happily spent the rest of my day in the Burton residence, where a number of cool things happened.

I went to the zoo! The Minneapolis zoo with MB my home G. MB loves zoo's! That was his terminology "I love zoo's". This struck me as funny and maybe it would too if you know Michael. Imagine a person you know with the dryest, most non-sequitorial humor you can imagine. His mother asks him "Why are you going to the zoo?" and he responds in abounding sincerity "I love zoo's". He loves zoo's. There you have it. A simple man.

As it turns out, I think zoo's are pretty cool too, but unfortunately the salient aspect of the zoo is not so much the animals that make the bulk of the advertised zoo experience, but the screaming children that have been fooled into thinking that a trip to the zoo is an acceptable substitute for going to the amusement park.

I also saw my friend's dad's shop where he makes... MOTHERFUCKING MEDIEVAL WEAPONRY AND ARMOR. FUCK MCFUCKING MASCULINE YEAH! SSSSSWWWWWOOOOOOOOOORRRRRRRDDDDDDDSSSSSS AND SHIT!

That was, to say the least, pretty cool. Though I must admit that I had some preconceptions as to what a shop of this kind should look like.

I'll admit that my vision involved a great deal more wood, stonework and leather pumping bellows, like the large version of the strange bag-like artifact that lives in my grandfather's house. This guy, Christopher Poor of , uses a host of ancient techniques in the making of his stuff, but has discarded the large oaken tables and stone floors in favor of metal workbenches and cement.

But don't be dissuaded of how epicly cool this place was. I mean, there were literally shelves of beautiful hand-crafted rapiers, broadswords, flails, maces, daggers and hand axes. And that's just how he listed them off, too, a rapid fire inventory-like list that seemed to indicate that he was just a little bored with the manufacture of the stuff of a twelve-year-old boy's dreams. I suppose I would be too if it were my job to get up in the morning and make A FULL SUIT OF PLATE ARMOR!!!

He also showed me the church he owns and inside he runs something called the "Oakenshotte Institute" which can be most succinctly described as knight camp for kids. Kids today...

And on Saturday, the Burton family put on a recital in their home. MB sings, so does his mom, his attractive cousin plays harp, some piano/math/physics genius from Stanford plays piano. All, it was a pretty swanky affair. This idea of throwing one's own recital is intriguing to the out-of-school musician in me...

And I went to the Dakota Jazz Club and caught a whole bunch of Lawrentians there. That account will have to wait for another time.

Nathan

Palmer's

2010-07-31T10:15:00.000-07:00

An interesting spread of days.

As we pick up the tale from the last leavings, we find myself having hung out with my female doppleganger and not having seen her dad's shop.

Later that night, MB and I go to see a friend's band perform at a nearby bar called Palmer's. This was slightly funny. I shall reprint a portion of some reviews of this Palmer's establishment:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Palmer's Bar
4 star rating
27 reviews Rating Details

Category: Dive Bars

Wandered into this awesome dive bar...

Palmer's is one of my favorite dive bars...

Seems like a place for junkies and lowlifes to go...

I was surprised to see the clientele switch gears at about 10:00 pm the last time I was here. It went from die hard locals to hipster college students...

If you're looking for an unpretentious, awesome, eclectic dive bar...

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I would like just like to offer a view thoughts on the nature of the dive bar.

1. Let's just recall that a "dive" is shitty place. I don't mean to pass judgment on Palmer's, or indeed, the dive bar phenomenon itself, but if a place is a dive, that means nothing more than it is a dirty, ill-lit, possibly cheap place. Therefore, the phrase "an awesome dive X" is illogical on the first glance.

I suppose it could mean that X (in this case bar) is awesome in its efforts to be shitty, but something about the notion doesn't sit well with me. The third excerpt seems to accurately describe a dive. What's surprising is that this person gave Palmer's a one star rating! I'm sorry sir, this place is clearly Category: Dive Bar! If it didn't have junkies and lowlifes in it, it couldn't qualify for that! And yet...

2. I direct your attention to the fourth excerpt regarding the switching of gears. At 10, the hipsters roll in. Here, perhaps is the reason that this person gave it a low rating. He is dissatisfied with the presence of lowlifes, here's my theory. Hipsters want to go to a dive, but they don't want an actual dive experience. They want to go a place that looks like an actual dive, that will give them the impression of being in a poor man's bar without having to encounter actual dive denizens (lowlifes).

What's so attractive to hipsters about dive bars? I think the last comment is telling. It's their lack of pretension. But what the fuck does this really mean? Pretension for dictionary means "laying claim to something". Ladies and Gentleman, I submit to you that Palmer's lays claim to being a dive bar, but in fact is not, because no dive bar would sell PBR at three dollars a pop and on special at that!

What the hipsters are looking for here is just bulletproof pretension protection. By going to bar that has the occasional crackhead and lowlife and unmopped floors, hipsters are trying to assure themselves that they are "real."

Hipsters, chill the fuck out. It's okay to be interested in "pretentious" "not real" things. Read your beatnik literature and wear your silly fashions. We love you anyway. Lose the pretension of unpretensiousness. Falling for Palmer's unpretensious veneer is only setting you up to fall for the "authenticity" pretension when you take your kids to some sort of Mayan exploration tour in Mexico 20 years from now.

Go find some real crackheads, hipsters, or get out of the kitchen.

Today was pretty cool

2010-07-29T15:51:00.000-07:00

I got up early this morning. Yes I did. At 9:30. For opera. Yes, that's right. Opera.

Whoa.

Me and my best bud MB ran off to the cinema to see a broadcast of Carmen. I was amazed at how many tunes from that work have penetrated popular culture. Blows my mind. Opera. Influential.

Well.

THEN I MET MY FEMALE SELF FROM COLLEGE THERE! AND WE WENT TO HER HOUSE! AND ATE DELICIOUS FOODS!

I was hoping to see her dad's arms and armor producing workshop. I bet there's nothing quite like the sight of molten metal becoming a most awesome medieval weapon of destruction! LIKE A SWORD!

But it didn't happen, maybe later this week.

The weekend comes, what do I do?

Livin' the Dream

2010-07-28T16:57:00.001-07:00

Many many many thanks to my gracias host, L.K. for housing me far past the amount of time that I originally imagined I would have to take up space in her charming apartment. I will forever miss that playful shower of hers that tends to squirt me in the face when I thought I was giving in the final twist to turn off.

Now I am quartered in my trombone bosom buddy M.B.'s house and the delicious scent of spaghetti wafts up my nostrils.

Tomorrow, I will be visiting someone who I think must be living the dream. The foremost blacksmith of medieval arms and armor in my immediate circle, in Minneasota, the country, and possibly the world. That, at least, is the version of events told to me by his daughter, the only person in college that seemed to be as weird as me in college and therefore a kindred spirit. So, a double delight tomorrow.

I was going to eat half a guinea pig today, but we failed to reserve that 24 hours in advance, so it can no longer be.

What adventure waits?

Follow my blog, so I can know you're out there. Follow, or leave comments. But follow first!

The Smell of Adventure

2010-07-26T10:44:00.001-07:00

I sit in an apartment in uptown Minneapolis.

From here, I have two plans.

1. Minneapolis --> Allentown --> Assorted East Coast Adventure --> The South --> Costa Rica --> Argentina/Brazil/Something like that
Features: Mom, new friends and college friends, unseen parts of america, cumbia, trombone playing, reconnect with study abroad life

Cons: Feels kind of old hat compared to option 2

OR

2. Minneapolis --> California --> Assorted West Coast Adventure --> Alaska? --> Japan? --> Silk Road --> Indian --> Turkey --> Europe/France?
Features: sister, cousins, the unfamiliar west coast, effing alaska, motherfucking asia and great adventure, and exchange student friends.
Cons: Likely to break the bank

I ain't got much money in my bank account and I might be able to make a little money and learn a shit ton about Latin music on the first option. The second option would be awesome, but might be more of a see the world, get nothing but thoughts out of it experience.

And I'll need to stop in Kansas City somewhere along the way there. If indeed someone really wants to visit me in late august and I wanna catch that wedding...

The Past Four Weeks

2010-07-25T14:04:00.000-07:00

Yo,

I'm in a coffee shop in Minnesota and planning the next phase of the adventure.

To recap where I've been and what I've done since the last time I was writing in this blog, I returned to college and finished it. Graduated with a degree in Spanish I don't really care for, from an institution that I'm not really sure was right fore. Playground's where I spend most of my days, chillin out max, relaxin' all cool and wondering what on earth I need to be doing with my life now that I'm at the end the to-do list I received at the beginning of my education.

I forestalled existential crisis by signing up to work at a summer camp to teach Spanish while I was still at school. I went pretty much directly from college to summer camp and found things to hilariously the same and others to be frighteningly reminiscent of my own camping experiences.

Before my eyes played out the familiar drama of adolescence, far-removed in time but not in memory. It was strange to see creatures who seemed to be going through the same time that produced my identity but were so vastly different than I was at that age. Whereas I was interested in abstruse humor and being weird in a manageable way, these kids had no trouble fitting in, only trouble understanding anything in the world around them. In short, they were dumbasses.

But I didn't realize that at the time, I just saw them as different, it wasn't until weeks later when one camper crossed the eerie line between aldeano and staff that I realized that these characters were familiar players from my high school stage, they were just the ones that paid me no attention. Now they just thought I was the shit cause I was six years older then them. That was fine for me. I gave them a house cheer that featured manliness and a 300 reference. Fair.

Second session was a bunch of middle-schoolers severely affected by ADD. This experience was trying beyond comparison. Every minute I was telling them to shut up during announcements, to quit eating with their hands, quit hitting each other, don't call the kid that talks funny Urkle. In all-too-common moments of meditation and evaluation of those mystical things called goals and growth, I would comment privately that my greatest achievement and camp was not ending the irritating existence of one of my campers.

Through a certain turn of events I turned to push-ups and other isometric exercise to keep them in line. This was a great turning point for the experience. During this exercise regime (haha)they started listening to the things I told them the first time and if they ever hesitated to participate in an activity, I or another counselor would just give them a little push-up gesture to jog their little memories.

The End?

2008-12-27T22:07:00.000-08:00

Long ago, I tried to write some kind of conclusion to my blog. I wrote this, sitting at home on a late night and have tried to touch it up a few times since then. It'll never really be finished, so I foist it upon you, warts and all.

Oh, and I don't mention it, but I think I'll be back. I hope I'll be back, after college to study music there and be a trombonist and make enough money to live.

Anyway...

I've always appreciated "The End" with a question mark. Just who or what does it question? Am I, the writer, challenging you the reader to guess whether or not this is the conclusion of things? Is the phrase itself an admission of the uncertainty of endings and the future? Is it the sound of incredulous disappointment, "The end? Is this all there is to it?" Maybe it's simple ambition, the man in charge of the credits trying to wedge an opening for a sequel. In this case, it's a little of all but especially this: It is a confession of ignorance, colored with a little hope. I could not bear to put an unadorned "The End" on any chapter of my life, much less one describing my time in Argentina.

Home, now that I am, I am waiting for someone to catch me while I am by myself at some social event, or sitting at my kitchen table late at night while I'm feeling reflective and I am waiting for them to ask "Nathan, how was Argentina?" I've been abroad a few times and I know that no one really wants the answer you want to give to that question. I know that I might not be able to give the answer I want to give to that question. But I want that person to hear my series of glib replies and short
but hopefully enticing responses and nod and say "Man, Nathan, that all sounds really great, but tell me: What is the heart of Argentina? What beats inside its chest? What moves its blood from the tops of the Andes, across desolate plains, through forests and rivers and swells the bleachers of its soccer stadiums? What is the gory psychic center of this forgotten arm of South America?"

And I want this person to listen patiently while I find the right words that make them see the faces of the people in Salta and hear the power of the Iguazú Falls and feel the mythic sadness of Buenos Aires. I want to elate them and I want to bring them to tears. More than that, I want to them to let me run out of words and have them nod again as they set down their cup and say to me "Nathan, wow. I really get it. That's so beautiful. It's great that you went"

So what is this heart? Who is this dark and hatted figure, the Argentino?

The Argentino, near as I know, is a farmer. Yes, the Argentino is more than that, and something besides that, he(she) is a fisherman, indigenous, cosmopolitan, oligarch vagrant, too, but truly at the core, the Argentino is a farmer.

Every last one of them, even the most urbane, electronica-listening city punk. The first time my spider-sense tingled to the rural nature of the Argentino, I was in the heart of Buenos Aires, in one of the parks of Palermo, speaking to a new acquaintance, Sef (short for Serefim). We were talking about Sef's new marijuana plant and his plans for it. I was asking Sef about the difficulty of growing such a thing when Sef did something that hardly blipped on my cultural radar. Sef took his hand out of his lap and patted the earth next to him and said:

"No. Don't you know about the earth here. It's amazing. You drop a seed in it and stand back. You can't stop things from growing in it"

There was something interesting about the whole scene. I didn't know what it was at the time, so I mentally earmarked it for decompression. And here's what I can tell you about it. Sef is the farthest thing from a farmer I can imagine, he was introduced to me through my friend Silia as the only porteño member of her goth and/or weird kid friend group. For my poor untrained ears, his vocabulary and pronunciation were a punishment of colloquialisms and Buenos Aires-isms. His summary reference to chicks, chunky urban fashion and vast knowledge of hallucinogens had me convinced of his urban, and therefore Buenos Aires, credentials.

But here was this skater punk, petting the earth like a dog and bragging about it. He spoke of it reverently, preciously, like a great treasure. That, I've realized since then, is something that I have never seen an American of any stripe do. No American that I've met (I've not met any farmers) has ever expressed to me anything approaching knowledge, familiarity or I daresay intimacy with the ground under his feet. There are farmers in America, but if we once were farmers, I don't believe we are any longer.

Sef's attitude echoed through the streets of the city. Encounters with people of a variety of backgrounds yielded the same attitude. My friend Niko, carpenter and total urbanite, also speaking of his forays into narcotic production, praised his earth and literally scoffed at the notion of hydroponics. What need?

I believe that a farmer is more than a person that inculcates earth and draws a harvest from it, a farmer can draw a richness less tangible that wheat or corn. He sees the earth and truly appreciates it. He looks at the earth like a conductor looks at a score. He can read it, he can see where there will be problems and plenty. He can appreciate the beauty of its design. The way the wind blows down from the north and the color of plant growing in the field is as meaningful to him as the fermata over the penultimate note is to the conductor.

This attitude permeates Buenos Aires and doubly the rest of Argentina. The doorman to the first building I lived in was from the province of Córdoba and spoke to me a few times of the beautiful countryside there, but he didn't just talk about sunsets and lake-views. There's always a certain knowing, slightly technical way of talking about the land, that I like to think is powered by the Argentine drive to make richness out of the earth.

This is why porteños always seem like they need a few hours more sleep. They're missing something and they don't even know what it is. They're in a long-distance relationship and they think that their supposed to be single.

And that's why everyone else in Argentina is... what they are. I think that living in the countryside as an Argentino would be like majoring in art even if you think an MBA is what you ought to go to college for. Yes it's easy, yes, but as a friend once told me, para que sufrir?

Buenos Aires' Latests Attempts to Tempt Me to Stay

2008-11-17T11:08:00.000-08:00

Che, boludos!

It's been a really action-packed week. I explain you now.

I'M GONNA BE ON A REAL LIVE CD!!!

Roommate of friend Brad is an accordion-playing israeli musician composer. He's been working on a record for the last year. And lately on a track called, Take Five Bulgarians, a crazy little version of Brubeck's "Take Five" in a crazy little mixed meter with a weird middle eastern key signature.

So on Thursday, I went to a studio and recorded my bit which will be mixed into the bunch. And it was a lot harder than I thought would be, go figure.

But I've had my first studio recording experience and the best part. It seems that this is a disc that will be sold in stores and everything. So, not having graduated yet or even being a music major, I'm on a real CD.

And come saturday, some friends of distant conntection through my tango teacher invited me to ¨zapar¨with them on saturday in Provincia. For me, provincia means dirt roads, noncity-dwelling, good-spirited Latin American folk. In the past, it has been a welcome relieve from the relentless city and citified denizens of buenos aires. Less arrogance, more acceptance, less money, etc.

Well, this place was not that. It was in a "Country" prounced "CAHntry". Which is short for country club, which is actually a mega gated community where the rich have fled from buenos aires. It is actually remarkably similar to hometown suburb in there, or some nearby. I now look suspiciously at Overland park, etc. Even more suspiciously anyway.

Curiously, the party was held in a house owned by an organization whose sole function is to throw parties in that house. There is a difference between america and argentina. Homeowners associations would never ever allow that house to exist.

Furthermore, the entire appeal of the party was its similarity to American house parties, things that dont really exist in Buenos Aires. According to a guy I talked to, the idea of a bunch of people in a house with alcohol in buckets of ice with a band formed of whoever is an american concept. I might be proud.

In anycase, these people pay 15 pesos to enter the place and there is an open bar (buckets of booze) and everything. Its similarity to parties in the united states is somewhat uncanny. The reality is that I would have never elected to go to such an event in high school which is where parties like this went down. So a few years later, in Buenos Aires, doing some odd frankenstein facsimilie of the same.

Here we are eating outside some place that was eerily similar to the village back home, standard outdoor mall sort of thing.

Not us, but alot like us. Except we had a trombone, and we´re better.

What does zapar mean? In this case, it means show up to a house full of people with musicians you don´t know and make up something on the spot. Francisco, my main man, would say "Funky en D menor" and away we'd go. I think we did a damn good job actually. People really seemed to like it, met some cool musicians, etc.

And the rest of these pictures I need to explain, but I´ve lost interest and I know how happy cora gets when I post, so I´ll leave ´em up to tantalize.

Cumbia Villera Part III: Brad's Tale

2008-11-07T11:37:00.000-08:00

Cora wakes me from my slumber.

There occurred an episode in the club which I am unsure that I want to/lack the creative energy to describe right now. I may return to the theme.

In any case, directly after the episode, I was motivated to leave the club very quickly. However, I did not leave with my friend, Brad.

This is his story.

While I was sitting on a bus, reflecting on my life-changing experience, Brad thought that I was still in the club and commenced to search for me.

I was not to be found. Brad, apparently not terribly concerned about my disappearance, decided to stick around inside the club to hear the band play.

I should take a minute to explain that cumbia villera is really pretty bad, all things considered. Musically speaking, it is about as complex as a ham sandwhich, which is to say, easy enough to make, but capable of killing Mama Cass.

Yeah.

The band begins and the people in the club just started freaking out. For all of you interested in the absurd schedule of the place, the badn began around 5 in the morning.

Brad reported to me that literally every song began with a little keytar solo (cumbia villera must have keytar) but it was the lamest, dorkiest little solo you can imagine. Dat datdat Dat datdat Dat datdat Daaaah sort of thing.

But the audience would cheer, jump and shout for these two measures of 5th grade piano skills. Brad reported fear and disgust at this point.

The band played on, disgustingly bad music evoking totally disproportionate response all the night, until the show closed. At the end, Brad stood by the door as the audience filed out, in search of me his headband that was lifted by a weird old lady.

Sighting the lady, he danced with her briefly to the shitty music they play to make everyone leave. Using this contrived distraction, he grabbed the headband and bolted out the door.

Good work, Brad.

06:30, Barrio Once, Calle Rivadavia, Brad opens his bus schedule to look for a ride home.

A "drunk dude" approaches Brad and ask for change. After Brad (who's spanish is not stellar, I must admit) denies him twice, he grabs Brad around the neck in a manner that Brad assiduously avoids describing as a headlock and offers to let him meet some friends.

The man's friends form a circle around Brad whilst the "drunk dude" hurls racial slurs at Brad.

I'd like to take a minute to pause the story and contemplate this cultural mix-up that is the modern world:

Brad Babinsky is the great-grandson of Japanese immigrants to America who maintained a purely Asiatic appearance by marrying within the Japanese population of California until the generation of his mother, who married one Mr. Babinsky, a man with a thing for Japanese girls. Now, this grandson, encouraged by experiences with Colombian musician-friends, is in Argentina trying to learn Spanish, but at in this point in the narrative is being ridiculed by a group of punks who, according to Argentines, are probably from Paraguay or Peru, refer to him as Chino, as they would anyone who happens to have slanty eyes.

On with the story.

Brad's less-than-stellar Spanish isn't quite capable of deciphering rainstorm of colloquialisms he found himself in, but he attests that he other members of the group reacted with considerable surprise to what one would assume was the viciousness of the barrage.

I must sincerely salute Brad's unshakable cool; he said that he wanted to keep the situation cool so he cracked jokes.

"Hey watch out man, I'm a chino so I know karate and stuff"

His efforts, which he said made him feel like an Uncle Tom (another cultural mixup that I won't go into), couldn't stop the robbery in progress. But thanks to the advice of my host mom, they didn't come away with more than one of two pesos brad had in change, his bus schedule and his shitty digital watch.

A majority of the thieves left, two remained with Brad. Brad said that they looked a little guilty, as if they wouldn't have robbed so much as they just went along with their drunken ringleader.

They began to interrogate in true villero style.

"Chino! What the fuck are you doing here man!"
"Oh, I was, uh, at the show."
"LOCO! Chino, what show!"
"Las Damas Gratis"
"Chino, WHAT! Cumbia villera!? You're loco, chino."

Brad says that they were as fascinated with him as he was with them.

They stayed and chatted for awhile in that fashion. Until Brad decided that he had better go home. However, having mentally prepared himself to waling home when the robbery began, he hatched a plan.

He stuck his hand in his pocket, palmed his last 1 peso coin and said "Me llamo Brad" and proffered his hand in introduction. The punk shook his hand and found the coin.

"Man! What the fuck is this, chino?"

"No, go ahead, take it, you said you needed change for the bus ride"

"No, man! We can't take this, its yours! God, Chino"

"No, c'mon. Take it. Please"

Or something like that. Ultimately they accepted it. Totally willing to rob some poor-bastard, lost-immigrant Chinese guy, but unwilling to accept his peso.

Brad walked home. Nobody robbed him again.

Cumbia Villera Part I

2008-10-31T16:34:00.000-07:00

Hey Kiddies, I’m back, connecting local pizzeria el continental, which I’m told is a pizzeria buena buena buena.

I’ve ordered a pizza fugazzetta rellena con queso cremoso, two pieces of fainá and a glass of moscato, a sweet wine which usually accompanies such things.

There’ve been some major changes in my life. I cut my hair, for instance. I got a mullet. Soon this will be a dread mullet. I think that you’ve all had sufficient warning. It will be a dreadmullet, once I’ve accumulated the sufficient length.

I’m almost done with all my papers and finals and crap, meaning that here comes the part of supplying my own diversion in or out of Buenos Aires. I’m planning on mostly out. The only thing keeping me in town is my bands performances on Sundays of every week. I’ve had better luck with las chicas outside of town anyway. I guess my reputation gets around. ;-)

And finally, the achievement of the hour, my first ridiculous story accumulated in Spanish and told in Spanish. It’s a little something called Nathan goes to a cumbia villera club at 2 o’clock in a very shitty part of town.

For my anthropology class, Traditions and Cultures of Argentina, I had elected to study cumbia villera, the music of the marginalized poor of Buenos Aires. It was the weekend before the Tuesday in which I would turn in a paper and I had yet to have been to one of the notorious clubs where such music is played. I had had great difficulty in finding a place to go to.

The problem was really a function of a little systematic hiccup in being here in Buenos Aires. As an American exchange student who attends a wealthy private school in a very particular sector of Buenos Aires, I was unlikely to know, of the few Argentines of whom I had managed to make an acquaintance, somebody who listened to such music and certainly would not know someone who had the interest, (or the stones) to go.

It was Friday night and I had become desperate. In response to my suggestion that we go to a cumbia villera club together, my two porteño friends responded with “no fucking way” and outright laughter. I was sitting in the pizza joint six blocks from my house trying to wrangle the great force of the internet into solving my problem. I was coming up with nothing, less than nothing.

In desperation, I ordered another pastry.

And used this opportunity to ask my waitress where I could hear cumbia villera and cut off her next words so I could explain why I was doing this.
You see, there is a little process that I had become familiar with in my search. Namely, I ask a porteño where I should go to see cumbia villera, they take in my white foreign Americanness, calculate that we must not actually have poverty or danger in America, and patiently explain to me what poor people are like and how they will rape, rob and murder when I try to set foot inside their club.

I had heard the speech many times before. There is really no variety. It usually begins with the phrase “don’t go” and finishes with the phrase “It’s not recommendable.” In between is a vast series of generalizations made by uninformed yuppies who, though Argentine, actually know as little as or less about the music and culture than me. Having pretty quickly discarded the ideas that form the basis of this thought process (Bolivians are drug dealers, Peruvians are literally insane, etc) this speech really only reinforces the motivations that had encouraged me to select this topic anyway, makes me a little mad and wastes my time.

I hate the hypocrisy enacted by these people that dance to cumbia villera whilst deriding the music and creators. I hate the idiotic notion that there is a sector of society that lives to rob and terrorize people with more money or lighter skin.
What I told my waitress, however, was that it was assignment for class and it was due Tuesday and I couldn’t find anywhere to go. She asked me what kind of teacher would do such a thing to one of his students. I contemplated the reply of “anthropology” before explaining to here that I was the one who had elected to do this to myself.

She called over a friend that might know more, being that she herself did not dance, listen or otherwise put up with cumbia villera. Her friend, however, reportedly went to clubs that were *quite* dangerous.

Her friend came over and suggested to me a couple that were out of town and much safer than legendarily dangerous barrio of Once, where should walk no foreigner. In summary her advice was, never go to Once under any circumstances, you may go to boliche #1 with someone who knows it and you may attend sterile boliche #2 alone, probably. Barrio Once could potentially not be a lethal deathtrap if you had a friend who was a regular that could take you. Don’t even think of going alone.
The two waitresses, though ultimately useless, were the most help I’d gotten thus far. They even made some vague promise to call me should they go to one of the boliches in the boonies. I checked it out online, one of them seemed perhaps almost
as dangerous as Once.

It would have proved satisfactory had I that kind of time. I went home and contemplated my situation. Due to distance and unfamiliarity, these boliches on the outskirts of town were out of the question. I was left with finding a club in Once. Figuring that I was already breaking all the rules , I said why not call a guy named Brad Babinsky.

Brad had at one point told me he was afraid of nothing and that sure he’d go to such a club. I didn’t really want to take him before as I thought I would be able to find a Spanish speaker and make it more educational, but no. Since then, he’d been receiving some of the steam from my blunted efforts to get to this club and therefore gotten wind of the nasty reputations involved. This time, when I asked him, he was not so eager to go. Actually what he told me was “Man. Honestly. I don’t wanna go. I really don’t like the music, and honestly, I don’t wanna die, man.”

But, my home boy, for reasons not totally understood, reversed his opinion and agreed to go. We were to rendezvous at a friend’s who lived near the area.

I arm to leave and my host mother, upon hearing my plan, laughs and gives me some advice. Don’t wear anything any fancier than what you’ve got now, take little money and keep half of it in your socks. If they ask for it, just give it to them. Seemed reasonable. I grabbed a hoodie and asked her, does this make me look richer or poorer? She laughs and asks me if it’s cold out. I tell her I want to cover as much of my skin and hair as possible. She laughs and tells me its fine. Chalk one up for the host mother versus negative three million for the city of Buenos Aires.

Finally, I leave and arrive at the rendezvous, late. Brad and friend Kevin are chilling outside taking pictures of Brad failing to get a taxi for his anthropology project. Ya’see, I forgot to mention that Brad is half-Asian. Sort of. He’s fourth generation Japanese-Californian and his dad’s Polish white guy with a thing for Japanese women. In any case, here in Latin America where race sensitivity is a term more likely used to describe nascar, he’s as Chinese as bok choy. So, ultimately, one o’clock in the morning, headed to reputedly narsty sector of Buenos Aires is a six foot three white guy as accompanied by an apparent member of an immigrant community known more for its highly-competitive supermarkets than its badassedness.

Still can’t get a cab at night, though.

We begin our walk down ominous Avenida Rivadavia, artery of barrio Once. At first, the district appears to be no worse than any other. It’s no more poorly lit or unkempt as any other road in the city. There are some people finishing dinner and leaving restaurants, couples walking hand-in-hand looking for diversion or a cheap motel, what have you, groups of whorishly-dressed girls chatting on the street corner no doubt deciding what club to go…

Oh wait.

In total defiance of the Bonaerense norm of avoiding male female eye-contact, these chicas were giving me a persistent stare. Initially confounded by the total discard of this irritating detail of porteño conduct, I confoundedly returned it. Then, realizing my error, I lowered my head and continued intensely my conversation with Brad. Those weren’t just whorish club go-ers, they were straight-up whores.

My earlier description of them as whorishly-dressed girls was doubly inaccurate as only a certain percentage of them were , in fact, female. The one giving me the look most vigorously was at least as tall as I was and had a brow ridge like the continental divide.

We hurried past, having had our first interaction with the Once of legend and arrived at the Plaza Once. If you’ve ever seen the fantastic Eddie Murphy film Meteorman or another movie from the early 90s about reclaiming the streets of New York City, you may be able to imagine the crumbling scene of the plaza.
I make it out much worse than it was, but it was pretty bad non-withstanding. Little traffic, construction on a monument in the center of the plaza littered the sidewalk with detritus. But, in direct objection to the reputation of the neighborhood, the plaza was also littered with open stands that sold food, presumably to departing clubbers. If the Peruvians were really raging on drug-frenzies, then these guys wouldn’t be out here hawking sandwiches, right?

And so , generally it wasn’t that bad. There was one guy passed out on the sidewalk. Like, literally stretched-out between two food-stands with a liter bottle of… something next to him. We left him alone.

We made a circuit of the plaza and headed back down Rivadavia. Fortuitously, we’d spotted a club that had a crowd outside and near as we could tell it seemed that the Damas Gratis were to play that night. In a city with a schedule like Buenos Aires, it’s a little hard to tell if “Saturday at four” means during the night of Saturday past midnight at four or actually at four in the morning on Sunday. In any case, the Damas Gratis were alleged to be playing “11-6.”

Don’t be fooled, all propositions of time in Buenos Aires are super tentative. It is entirely possible that within the suggested “11-6” framework, that the Damas Gratis would actually play at seven. Not that I said this to Brad. I told him that we’d be home in bed at four o’clock.

And, yes, the Damas Gratis is a band of cumbia villera. So well known, in fact, that though I can name you only three bands of cumbia villera, I had already heard of them. Their name is a pun on the term for Ladies Night, which could also mean free women. We were truly working with the finest in cumbia.

We pay a twenty peso cover and line up to enter. I was subjected to an extremely thorough frisking before being admitted to the club. I was made to remove my hat and unzip my hoodie which was then felt to see if there were something concealed in the lining. The hoodie has no lining.

With that, I replaced my hat as I stepped through the metal detector and took in the scene. The place was surprisingly well lit and not totally packed as I had expected it to be. And unsurprisingly contrary to porteño expectations, not full of raging, poor gangsters. As Brad and I ascended to the second level to survey the scene, it became clear that the place was actually populated by an enormous variety of people.
There were people ranging from late teens to early 40s, judging from a visual estimation, an equal mix of men and women from a apparently large range of economic backgrounds. Styles of clothing ranged from the more typically “villero” tracksuit to conservative short-sleeve, button-downs. It seems that a majority of the club-goers had followed the advice I had received in dressing down for the event; unlike the high standard of dress found at many Buenos Aires clubs, jeans and t-shirts predominated. The environment was calm, the music at a tolerable volume level and the sound of conversation actually competed with the music.

Dancing was decidedly less pornographic than what was to be found in your average Reggaeton-playing boliche. Most couples danced face-to-face and joined hands in a pseudo-meringue/salsa style.

Alcohol consumption was also contrary to porteño expectation. It did not appear, from cursory examination that the infamous “wine in a box” was sold at this location. And to my great joy, they didn’t even sell Quilmes, truly the worst achievement in alcohol, though it’s the beer de facto in nearly every liquering establishment.

It seemed that at this juncture, the only thing that Brad and I were going to suffer from was going to be boredom. That turned out to be incorrect, but I’ll have to leave you on a cliff-hanger cause I need to go leave to get dinner now.

Rainy Day, Finals

2008-10-22T10:59:00.000-07:00

Those two pictures tell a story about how hard it rained in Buenos Aires the other day.

Excuse my lack of postage (Cora). This is crunch time for me. In the next day, the following things are due:
1 history paper (7-10 pages, double space) Monday
1 tango paper (8+ pages, single space) Thursday? I hope
1 anthropology paper (7-10 pages, spacing unknown) Tuesday
1 "semiotics" excercise (complicated) Monday or Tuesday
several radio excercises (uh...) ?
2 literature finals Monday

But the good news is, the view from my room is sweet at night.
In other news, I went to see Maykel's band "El Portón" play at a place that is two for two on sweet shows. They play music of the Rio Plata, which is a pack of weird influences including african drum tradition, uruguayan harmonized singing, and a lot of highly dancable tropical beats. There was I cha cha line. I did as I was bid by my dark cha cha masters.

Since then, I've been hypocritically thinking about how I'm gonna get all this crap done before monday and procrastinating.

By the way, I'm studing Cumbia Villera for my anthro project, which, as I may have said before, is like Argentine gangsta rap. A friend suggested that I go to the villa (slum) to see the real deal. I may be able to do such a thing if I go with my friend Locoto.

Locoto actually is a spicy pepper from Bolivia, not a name. But ever since he brought a spicy, locoto-derived sauce to the otherwise unspicy Argentine asado, he's gone by that moniker.

It also indicates his solidarity with Bolivia and Bolivians, who are a rather unpopular immigrant group here. Like Mexicans for America, but with more subtones of drugdealing and vegetable selling.

To part, a few more pictures from Tandil, cause I shorted you guys:

And finally, this goes out to Gizem.

Tandil

2008-10-17T08:33:00.000-07:00

I had a four day weekend. Every other Yanqui in Buenos Aires was heading to nearby megalopolis Cordoba for their Oktoberfest. Yes, they have an Oktoberfest there. It struck me as rather stuoid to go to Argentina for a beer festiva that we have in the United States, so I polled some kids in my radio class where I ought to go. They listed off a bunch of party destinations and some place that I had never ever heard of before. Hmm. Beach, beer, booty or a an exciting journey through the happy-go-lucky crazyplace of the Argentina dairy country.

Well, you all know me:

Yup. That's cheese. Yes. I went to the Wisconsin of Argentina. Truthfully, I didn't know that before I went.

The plus side of my vacation selection is that it put me in with a whole bunch of argentines who were in my boat. Tired of Buenos Aires and looking for some place to recharge their batteries. Turns out Tandil is the typical sort of destination for a real portenho. So, two things. Maybe I am fitting into Buenos Aires if I get sick of it like real portenhos do. And, the city was chock full of argentines. I didn't see or hear another yanqui de mierda the entire weekend.

And tandilenses clearly are a more positive sort that portenhos. Looking confused in the retiro bus station, I ask a guy what the hell my ticket is supposed to indicate and it turns out he is returning home to Tandil. Funnier coincidence, he will be teaching skiing in Steamboat Colorado starting in the same month I return home. I offered to show him around KC if the opportunity presents itself. He invited me to hang out over the weekend.

But first problem first. Tandil is a popular long weekend getaway for Portenhos. Nathan shows up in town at 6 AM on a thursday with no reservation. So Nathan spends the next couple hours pounding the ground in search of cheap lodging. Unanswered doorbells, turnings away and high prices have Nathan being sent to some women's house to rent out some kind of lodging.

Turns out to be a sweet deal. Mary, as she is called, is a sweet ol' gran who says to Nathan upon his arrival:
"A, Hola chico. Chico lindo. Tan lindo, de donde sos?"
"Why hello boy. Handsome boy. So handsome, where are you from?"
It's the best female attention I've gotten yet, I stayed.

I spent the first day wandering around the city/countryside climbing rocks covered in cacti and generally thinking it was nice to see the sky. That lasted about 5 hours and then I decided that there was so little in Tandil, that I oughta book it to some other part of the country.

I took a siesta at 6, being exhausted from the little sleep and blistering activity and I woke up sometime the next day. In time to meet some people that turned this trip around!

Meet Yami (Shahmi) and Laura. To my horror, English teachers, but thankfully users of british english and totally disinterested in my unapologetic provinicialism.

But they were some sweet cats. We tackled a few of the sites of tandil, like a huge crucifix, but it started to pour. So we high tailed it back to our pad get into dry clothes.

And then, I met some other people that had blown into hostel. Ernesto and his girlfriend eugenia, who{s face bore striking resemblance to an aunt of mine. In any case, he taught me to play the Argentine card game of Truco. Epitomizing the italian element in argentina cutlure, its played with a "spanish" deck of cards whose suits are clubs, coins, swords and cups and its key gameplay element is lying.

In summary it was a great relaxing trip. Im not gonna give you the play by play on everything, suffice to say that I got to see what it was like to be an argentina on vacation. I soaked in this vibe of truly being away from my culture. One of the highlights of the trip was when I was the silent witness to a conversation between the people present concerning what it was like to be from different parts of the country. I guess it would be similar to hearing some californians talk to a guy from Ohio about how people from New York City are really unfriendly.

Thats all for now. Maybe more another time.

Oh, in unrelated news. My friend Brad, who is a yanqui that does not suck, hipped to me some music via his external hard drive. Im 100% hipper and blacker than I was.

I also lost my passport. Whoops.

Nathan

Chillaxin' with Unos Pibes Bárbaros

2008-10-10T07:44:00.000-07:00

Pibe - kid; a young person

Bárbaro - Literally barbaric; cool, fantastic

My friends are cool, ¿eh?

Last sunday I received one iteration of a group text message that said "We rehearse at 4. As a price, asado. "Tirada de goma" for dessert.ee

I consulted a taxi driver for the definition of the last term, which appeared to be past participle of the word throw (tirar) and the word for rubber. It seemed to me that it might be a delicious gelatin snack. I confirmed this with the taxi driver I was riding with at the time.

As it turns out, its an argentismo for blowjob. It appeared that my friends were being funny.

Little did I know I at this time, the sender of the text message was being berated viciously for sending me a text message that I was unlikely to understand on various level. Solutions were hatched.

I contemplated a response tranquilly. Searching through my relatively modest Spanish armoury, I select "Your mother will be coming, then" and hit the send button.

As put by the girlfriend of Maykel, "here we all were, worried that Nahtan (pronounced that way) wasn{t gonna get. He´s not gonna get it, he´s not gonna get it and bam, we got a response more Argentine than anyone else."

I felt pretty awesome at that point.

Anyway, there was rehearsal.

And then there was MEAT!

Worry not, all, I paid as much attention to the cooking as humanly possible and I assure you that its pretty much inexplicable as to why this shit tastes so good. I figure its the meat.

Briefly, salt large metal plate. (2 feet by 3 feet) throw raw meat on plate. Set apparently homemade grill on top of home made three sided brick structure, build fire, use wood/carbon as charcoal, set meat on home made grill, press pieces of calabaza and garlic on meat, set same metal plate on top of cooking meat, remove large metal plate, set meat on large metal plate, eat , reflect that between the chaotic BsAs nightline, the five people eating hunks of bloody meat off of the same piece of metal with huge ass knives make for a vaguely post-acopalyptic scene.

Also, the above bell-shaped item is a calabaza, or squash, filled with cheese. Mmm...

Also, that guy is not me.

To post in the future, video´s of Nico, my hair role model, speaking English and the sense of revelry that there was.

Today, I am in Tandil. A city in the province of buenos aires. I will report when I have something to report.

Nathan the Intrepid

Fake Post

2008-10-08T14:54:00.000-07:00

Hey Kiddies,

I'm writing a real post to tell you about my Argentine Asado experience, but in the mean time, I've organized some of my better fotos into a publicly (hopefully) viewable location.

Check it out, leave comments, criticism, whatever somewhere in some form.

My Stuff

You're cool!

Coherent, Brief(er) and Apologetic Update

2008-10-06T05:41:00.000-07:00

The last post was in coherent, and for that I apolgize.

But you've all seen my hair plans. And you've weighed in. I see an overwhelming resistance to the idea, which means that there is only one thing to do. And that is it. Do it, that is. I resolve to get this haircut in the week that comes after this one, as I am thinking of traveling someplace cold and I want the extra hair for now.

Some pictures of my new house and an explanation:

So I changed host families. Why?

The reasons aren't too complex. You all saw pictures of the food in the last joint. Probably better food to be had in jail. And some of you are probably crying out "Nathan, it's wrong to leave a family just cause the food is bad" and you'd be right except that everything else about this homestay was no good. The bed was too small and tucked into a bed-shaped nook in the room so that there were wall's on three sides of the bed and therefore no place to put my feet. The bed is exactly six foot three inches long with heater on the wall where I would have to put my feet.

Also the lady with whom I lived was a weird old crone. Bad vibes from her. Didn't speak to me other than to tell me to hang up my clothes or ask me if she should reheat the white sauce pasta disaster.

And ultimately, as I tried to explain in the previous post, she didn't like me as much as I didn't like her. I said to Guillermo that I didn't know who was happier see me go, her or me. When she heard this, she laughed and said I was smart.

The new place, by contrast, is quite nice. Here is my well-lit and spacious room.
And here is the view from the window. I can also go on the roof if I find this to be unsatisfactory. The food is a little more difficult to capture in picture form, but the lady sells milanesas de soja for a living, so her cooking chops are up to snuff.

She also kisses me when I leave, as do real argentines ( I think) though hers are full-on lips-on-cheek kisses that surprised me a little when I met them. I leave you with a picture of a sunset in my barrio in order to fill you with warm fuzzys.

And a sunset picture to give a general warm fuzzy vibe about:

New Accomoda-

2008-10-01T12:38:00.000-07:00

Well, this will be a weirdly and stunted update.

I came to this the ISA office today specifically to write this post with a flash drive (known here as a pen drive for reasons I can not fathom, could be because flashearse means to blow one´s mind) that was supposed to be full of pictures of my new dwelling.

As you may have guessed from my use of supposed, my flash drive is not full as I´d hoped. It contains no pictures of my new pad, and instead a picture of my role model for my next haircut.

Feast your eyes, ladies and gentleman, on the future of Nathan´s head:

Yes, it is wondrous.

Now, on to the titular theme.

I was on the way here to talk about my change in home stay that I´d recently accomplished, I´ve moved to a house that is nicer and bigger and the food is way better. However, a strange coincidence came to pass. My old (not so good) host mother was in the office talking to Guillermo, the receiver of my complaints and liason for arranging other homestays. I made no special effort to speak with her and continued to try and piece together the state of the US economy online.

Some attractive jewish girl brought some family member over for me to meet and I forgot about it. Guillermo walked by and directed someone into his office. That someone was me, as it turns out. Uh oh.

Apparently she had come in to ¨chat,¨ which struck me as unlikely. For some reason, Guillermo felt it necessary to inform me of the contents of said ¨chat.¨

More and more things swim past the language barrier these days, so I was about 99% on what Guillermo was telling me, but for some reason, the only explanation that I got out of Guillermo concerning why she came to the office was this ¨chatting¨concept.

For whatever reason they talked, the topics of my chief complaints against the lady came up. The food being bad, scarce, the mysterious negative vibe to the place, the mysterious disappearance of housemate Naír (something I failed to report. One day, Cecilia changed the locks and decided to have Naír go. Another vagary).

In any case, there was a lot more incomplete information and places where her story did not corraborate with mine, but there was at least something I thought was worth sharing.

When I first moved and Guillermo asked me how it went, I told him (in a mangled spanish translation of the english though I was having) that I didn´t know who was happier to see me go and his eyebrows shot up.

He shared this anecdote with my ex-host lady and she laughed and said that I was intelligent. Guillermo agreed.

Apparently after the "episode" with Naír and then the one conversation I had with her about the food being bad, etc. she said that she´d had enough (I´m missing the logical connection there, too) and she said that she let it get flojo, which means loose.

Also, when Guillermo brought up the subject of food, she began to obfuscate. Guillermo interrupted her and said that he´d seen a picture, which he had, I linked him to my blog. He then either said that she shut her mouth or that it fell. In either case, the next she said was definitely "it could be."

So anyway, I´m still confused as to exactly why Guillermo wanted to talk to me about this unless he just wanted to let me know that I was right all along.

And briefly, my new living arrangement.

I live with a women named Adriana. She is very nice and energetic. A fantastic cook, Adriana sells milanesas de soja for a living. A milanesa is Argentine Schnitzel. Imagine, if she makes people actually want to eat these soy substitutes for Argneinte meat, they must be delicious. And they are.

She also makes me spicy food, because I told her that I like it. She made something so spicy that she coughed. Given, I had to be told that it was in fact spicy, but hey its the thought that counts.

The room is spacious, I can effectively hang my feet off the edge of my bed and there is a beautiful view as we are on the 10th floor. All and all, a pretty good deal. It is far from school so I´m constantly hunting for coins for the bus, but so far, definitely worth it.

Thats all for now folks, pictures at a later date.

PS I was thinking of submitting my blog to a real news source for fun. Any suggestions as to how that might be possible?

The Gig

2008-09-25T11:11:00.000-07:00

The Concert has come and gone!

Total success, ladies and gentleman I'd like to thank you all for your hard work.

As you may know, the reggae band which I found with the sweat of my brow and natural good looks and talent, had their first concert with yours truly. Ironically located in the bar in which I first saw them. It was a symbolic revisit and triumph.

Only two months ago I went to this bar with passing friend Paul McGuire where we navigated the new (to us) social dynamic of a bar. We lucked out and spotted someone we knew and sat with them and I thanked the lord that Paul was not as fond of the portenho habit of selling beer by the liter as everyone else I knew.

We sat there sucking on our cervezas chicas and attempted conversation in the whirlwind of bar noise. We failed at that and I even managed to spill a large glass of beer on Paul that I offered to get him in return for the glass of the bilgy joy juice known as Quilmes that he gave me. Miraculously, a girl there asked for my number (imagine my confusion) but as if to top off the night, I lost it a little while later when my phone was stolen on my way to Salta.

We did, however, notice that the band was kicking.

But all that is in the past. In my triumphant return, I no longer sit with the groundlings, taking in the sonic awe that is Sudaka Roots. I am a Root of Sudaka!

The collusion of the schedules of an Argentine and a musician are pretty vicious. Add a Brazilian being charge of the whole thing and what you get is a show that's supposed to start at 11 on a Sunday night that actually get started around 12:30 on what is technically Monday morning, a day when Nathan has class at 8.

Begin the photos!

As you can see, I'm rocking my Japanese-knickers and european shirt. I am teh international. Also pictures is our Brazilian singer and hatted quasi-chileno argentino. We are doing a little pre-show meditation. Actually, this turned out to be the spontaneous group response to a surprise element in the show. Our paraguayo auxiliary percussionist took it upon himself to pepper our playing with weird ambient sounds from his laptop. If this was mentioned to me or in front of me, it hit the language barrier like a fly on a windshield. Consequently, I missed my entrance. And also, the ambient noise was in a different key than the melody. Whaddup wit dat?

Here be a more full on shot of the band. I hope that no one missed the mind-breaking, culture swapping travesty that is Mario's T-shirt. Mario likes Rage Against the Machine, Immortal Technique and anyone else that claims to represent an oppressed portion of the population. I think that this may be the reasoning behind Mario's selection of an scowling Native North American, although his heritage is primarily African or South American Native. In any case, Mario's blatant disregard for the boundaries of race, geography and culture has emboldened me to adopt dreadlocks. More on this at a later date.

The crowd! I felt like a fucking rock star. They danced, the sang along, they came in great number! Of course, virtually everyone in the forefront of this picture is one of Mario's capoeira students, but hey! Who's counting? And some friends of mine were there too. Picture's courtesy of Swedish camerawoman Klara.

Also, as my father might make comment, my host brother Jos'e came to see the show and as we were setting up, he mentioned to me, look at all the huesitos! Huesito, from the word hueso, means little bones, and actually refers to hot chicks. This word's environment tends to be the kind in which there are no females within earshot so I think it maybe has some sort of like dripping, juicy meat connonation.
And for the close, we sang a Bob Marley song and invited everyone in the club up to sing and dance and to play instruments if they got 'em. A few obliged. The huesitos in this picture would be Mario's attractive girlfriend on the right, and sexy-six pack girl from my capoeira class on the left. As you can see, a show of much more success than I ever accomplished in the US. Trombonists, Buenos Aires loves you.

And when we are done, are we ever done? No. The show finished at around 3 and what does the Porteno do at three oclock in the morning? Sleep? Swear and catch a bus home trying to get in a few hours of rest before the morning comes and makes him pay for his temporal nonchalance?

No. We get pizza.

Sadly, we failed in finding a pizza joint in the neighborhood and were all set up to go a far away barrio that might have acceptable pizza.

Luckily, I thought, the guitarist called off the search and offered a jam session at his house. I accepted instanteously. I am now the graduate of my first 4 oclock in the morning jam session.

And of course, his house was farther away than the original far away pizza barrio.

But it was worth it. Between two guitars, some bongos and a bottle of wine (no glasses) music was made. And it was truly unique. Its not every day that you can sit on a guy's couch in Buenos Aires under scrawlfitti on a wall that says something like "One must live the life of rock and roll forever". They played folklore and tango and even plucked a few blues so I could play along.

I got home at 5:30. I did not go to class at eight. Or eleven.

PS. a video dark somewhat useless of the 31 seconds of the show. Enjoy!

A Damn Good Day

2008-09-17T10:20:00.000-07:00

I rode the 65 back to my place with a smile. I was full of good pizza, melodies and memories.

I arrived at Maykel´s place an hour even later than the hour late time I was supposed to arrive. Rehearsal started at 7, my class ended at seven. It takes an hour on bus to get to his neighborhood. Apparently, it takes an hour to walk back from school, grab my trombone, maintain my relationship with the doorman and find a collectivo.

I navigated the crowd on the collectivo with no small bit of skill, snagging a corner to secure my trombone and a wall to lean myself against. I watched as guitarists darted artfully through the crowd with their lighter, infinitely more popular instrument strapped to their back. The man with the trombone stares down the irritation that the human-sized space of his instrument generates.

After much direction-peddling and street sign-searching, I get off the bus and ubicated, as they say here. I found my way through Boedo, Maykel´s neighboorhood. I´d been once before. By day, it was a beautiful quiet neighborhood, where kids play soccer in the streets, using streetsigns as goal post. By night, it was quietely menacing, like all of Buenos Aires. Still, the pair of women I asked for directions maintained the neighborhood´s onda. They were almost as new to the neighboorhood as I was. They thought I was heading in the right direction. Probably.

Then a guy with long hair, dark skin and a hat walked lazily down the sidewalk in my direction, swinging something. Had Boedo betrayed me? No. It was Maykel with his keys on a lanyard. He´d come to get me. Good guy, Maykel.

I was back in his apartment, the same one I´d visited on the weekend to learn the wind parts for Sudaka Roots, my reggae band. It was as friendly by day as it was by night. He took me upstairs to the salita. There were two more. Nico, on the bass wearing a green and yellow track jacket and sporting the most righteous dreadlock-mullet I´d seen yet and Julian wild-eyed and bearded guitarists. The smoke in the air confirmed the Rastafarian nature of the event.

Maykel explained that he cleared with the other guys in the band and it was cool and I could play with them. Then he said something else that didn´t swim beyond the language barrier. Something about a test, that either this was or it wasn´t.

And then they started to play. Maykel played tortured-broken beats on the set while he sang in harmony with the other two. He sang me lines to play and I picked them up, quick as I could. I fumbled a few times with it before I got the hang of it, but soon we were rockin´ in rhythm.

The song was wild and hilarious, it helped me to feel at ease. It went from cool reggae to waltz to ska-tempo. It had as many breaks as it did for acappella harmony as it did for a coordinated scream from the players. It really made me wish that I understood the lyrics.

Afterwood Nico told me that when Maykel or other wind players came to play, it always amazed him to see how quickly we could pick up the parts. It cost him to learn them, he said. Apparently I had performed above the standard which was expected of the bassist and guitarists by any rate.

We played more, and it was heaven. Maykel´s songs were good. His melodies were harmonized and his compositions thoughtful. His lyrics were righteous, badass. I got a reading later. Something about the Lion stalking those who repress and hide the truth and to live is to create and leave something behind. It was also in D harmonic minor. I can´t resist D harmonic minor.

We had a fucking blast. They joked and kidded around, and though I struggled to keep up. I got maybe half of the jokes. Jokes are hard, that´s pretty good. Nico told me he learned the English he knows from watching movies. Julian said it was because he was too stupid to read the subtitles. I pointed out that Nico had the dreadmullet becuase he was growing the only part of his hair that he could grow in full.

After rehearsal, Nico had to go to play soccer. Julian, Maykel and I reconvened downstairs. Out of the rehearsal, I again felt the discomfort of being in a situation without a focus and without a language to get me by.

We walked downstairs, where Julian indicated a red scrap of clothing in the middle of the floor. Maykel picked it up and took it into another room. Julian continued pointing out bits of clothing and Maykel scooped them into his arms. I detected an air of attempted seriousness and dignity, but when Maykel was full to his shoulders of clothing, they both laughed and I smiled the smile of a joke witnessed, but not understood.

Maykel noticed when he returned from depositing the clothing and tried to explain to me. I was understanding the words he was saying, but not the sense. Finally, he told me.

¨We use the word "mañanero" he said.
"And what does that mean" I asked.

What followed was more of the same quasi-comprehension until finally, he made a familiar dragging-onself-about-by-the-tie gesture and said.

"It means to fuck in the morning"

We chilled, he played me music, lamented the necessity of fighting for the opporunity of playing music in Buenos Aires and further educated me in slang.

"You will have a good education in slang with the negro here" remarked his girlfriend later when she arrived.

They asked me what I thought about pizza here and I said that I wasn´t totally sold. The answer was then to buy some pizza to re-educate me. I protested that I didn´t even have one mango (peso) and they told me that they wouldn´t accept it anyway.

I ate pizza that was finally strange, unusual and delicous. And I was full and happy. We sat and chatted and joked. Talked about what was wrong and right in the world.

When the pizza was done, Julian got ready to leave and so did I. We walked to the door, where Celeste, the girlfriend, confirmed that I knew where the bus was. We all kissed, I thanked them graciously and left.

I walked through the cold and still Boedo night, taking pleasure in the company of the cats that I shared the sidewalk with and arrived at my near-empty collectivo, the 65. I grabbed a seat for myself and my trombone, leaned back to make room for the pizza in my belly and started to hum.

The Inhumanity of Humanity

2008-09-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Let's take a little moment to describe the concept of traffic and hora pico in Buenos Aires. Hora pico translates about into peak hour and it refers to when the public transit herer starts to get a little yucky. And by a little yucky I mean it would be nice if a polite Japanese man in white gloves helped press people into the car because it would hurt less than having a 30 yr old, sweaty argentine throw himself into the mob in hopes of compressing the crowd to a size that allows him in the traincar.

But when is hora pico? Well, contrary to the singular nature of the name, there is a multiplicity of hora picos.

Let's look at this logically. The first hora pico would be in the morning, because everyone has to get to work pretty much at the same time, so one hora pico at the beginning of the work day. I've heard that came be from about 6-8 (notice how hora pico is more than an hour). And, then, naturally, everyone gets out at the same time too, so there is another hora pico (the one I am most familiar with) from about 5-8.

But, if these people wake up, go to work and return from work about the same time, that all means they're gonna get hungry at the same time so mind you that there will be a little hora pico somewhere in the middle of the day as everyone skips over a few stops to find their favorite generic argentina restobarcafe. So, 12-2. We're already looking at three hora picos of considerable length.

Well, we're not done. There is also the hora pico that occurs when everyone gets out of high school at around 3 oclock and that lasts for about an hour or two. And, depending on the day there are going to be people going downtime to find a club or dinner or what have you that creates another hora pico at around 9 o clock at night that peters out until the subte closes at around 11.

When these poor bastards finish dinner and head over to another barrio for whatever, they'll pile onto the bus to create an hora pico there too. Overcrowding is hardly the most dangerous thing about the bus systems here so let's not get into that.

Instead, let's line up these hora picos that we do have.

6-8 Hora Pico
11-2 Hora Pico
3-5 Hora Pico
9-11 Hora Pico.

Observant readers may note that the subte spends about as much time in hora pico as it does in service. Prudent readers would challenge my numbers, being that it would be illogical to designate an period of time that is more than half of the overall schedule as irregular. However, I am good little anthropologist and I've kept good old cultural relativity in mind. I've therefore used the Argentine's opinion themselves as my definition of the hora pico. What I mean to say is that the above schedule was determined by a mental scatter plot of the occasions that the horrible press of humanity were blamed on big bad Hora Pico.

I wonder if the insane optimism reflected in the fact that Portenos believe that the inhumane conditions of their public transit is something that has a marked beginning or end rather than a permanent and famous feature or if this is something that can be found in every Meglopolis on the globe. Certainly spending a portion of every day with my nose embedded in the armpit of a tall, stanky foreigner (lo siento, senorita) would addle my brain until I was able to accept such a thing.

Today's Manifesto

2008-09-10T21:07:00.000-07:00

I had a conversation with my friend Conner Hinderks yesterday. He has recently come back to the US from a lengthy stay in Japan and is totally psyched about the world. Projecting my own experience on to him, I think that he must be totally blown away my Japan and its culture and looking forward to digging into the culture of another country. He asked me what I knew about teaching English and the like somewhere in South America.

Hold your horses, Conner. Pará.

I, too, was excited for inter-cultural experience here on scale that I knew in Japan. Te lo doy corto, I haven't got it.

I came to Buenos Aires looking for an experience like I had in Japan. Something that would blow my mind for six months. I wanted items as ordinary as vending machines to confound my expectations.

I raise a logical question. If one expects his expectations to be violated, and they're not, does that mean his expectations have been in some way violated?

More than amusing, that sums up my experience in cultural exchange right now. Let me unpack it for you.

I assumed the process of getting to know a culture would have to be like my experience in Japan, where I spent seven weeks in homestay/travel. I expected vast and obvious differences in culture, I anticipated difficulty in coming to terms with them. And I would be satisfied because the process would be exciting, different and occasionally challenging.

What has happened in Argentina has not been that. The culture has not blown my mind. Cultural differences are slight and more like annoyances than grand learning experiences. Being the most European city in South America is really more a negative factor than a positive. If I'd wanted to go to Paris, I'd have gone to Paris.

But here's a thought I've been having. The culture of Argentina must be different than that of the United States. It is simply impossible otherwise.

Given that, any perception that I have that the cultures are the same must actually have to do with my blindness to the subtlety of the culture that I'm in; I am projecting my culture over that of Argentina.

I am working under this theory lately, and tell myself that it is more difficult to grasp a culture that seems similar than one that is obviously foreign. I like to think I am learning the significance of minor variations in culture. I also think that I've learned that some unique aspects of the culture are more or less hidden and that I must pry the pearl of new experience from the mundane clam that is the Buenos Aires.

Of the former category, I am becoming interested in the dire necessity of greeting everyone that you know when you enter a room, the profoundity of classism here.

The latter category is a bit easier because its a little more concrete. I've set out to find the things in Buenos Aires that even the porteños are unsure about. I am of course interested in tango, which is only a niche phenomenon in modern BsAs, discounting the so-called Tango Nuevo, which could be better described as techno with Bandoneón. Interested parties are directed Tanghetto, or founder of the concept, Gotan Project, which does a better job of sounding like Techno.

However, I am also interested in folklore, which is Spanish word that is pronounced "fohk-LOH-reh" and refers exclusively to a style of music with origins that I hope to learn more about. It appears that in this stage of my investigation that this is the repository for all the old musical traditions of Argentina, and judging by the quality of the little I´ve seen, what the real musicians like to play. I don't know much more than the fact that I like it. All parties are invited to look into Mercedes Sosa, a semi-retired singer who I saw perform on a broadcast of a MERCOSUR conference.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OCq49H8JffE

However, these things are somewhat irrelevant to Argentine culture. Upon hearing my desire to learn about this things, Argentines would probably nod their heads and mark my quest as appropriate for a foreigner trying to learn about Argentine culture and they would probably think to themselves that they too ought to take a tango lesson one of these days. C'mon, they would think, it's my culture, right?

Needless to say, its not exactly part of their culture if it's a museum piece for them, too. They above situation would probably be alot like if a foreigner approached you as said that he wanted to learn about Ragtime, because its a great American music. And it is, but, when was the last time you even thought about Ragtime?

This sensation is what has motivated me to investigate cumbia villera, a style of music native to Argentina that Argentines react to with anything from rancor to rolled eyes. My investigation is in its early stages, relying mostly on hearsay and outraged secondary sources. It is criticized for being disgustingly sexual, and promotional of drugs and delinquency. It is associated with the city's poor. Against the advice of literally everyone I've met, I will be going to club that plays this kind of music. Interested parties are advised to investigate the following:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ggyMLgU87r4
When my anthropology teacher directed me towards this band, one of his colleagues looked him as if he were crazy and a shocked and embarrassed to have his country associated with such a thing.

Incidentally, Argentines are like this about their culture. They were ashamed of tango, they are apologetic for their variety of Spanish and think of their language as more or less a corruption, and now embarrassed of cumbia villera. It might be advisable for Cumbia Villera, as it does seem quite basic.

I accomplished a goal today. I got out into the Provincia of Buenos Aires, which is the sprawling mega suburb which surrounds the city. This is where things finally felt a little different, but I am falling asleep now, so for another time.

And then there was internet,,,

2008-09-07T07:40:00.001-07:00

My shoes might look like one of these. And by the way, the middle one is not deformed, thats what it looks like before they decide a size and cut it down.This is what a shoe shop looks like. Messy, eh?
The view of... some plaza near the plaza de mayo which is not the plazo de Mayo. It's beautiful except...
It's totally encased in fence. So there is this really lovely plaza that is clearly designed for pedestrian traffic. Bums sleep against the fence, I like to think out of spite.
Naturally, the only reason the plaza is beautiful is because of the fence. If thee were not a fence, it would be covered in poorly executed scrawlfitti. And would look nothing like this van.
Which is what good graffiti often looks like in this city.

My readership is almost entirely girls. Therefore, I will use this next picture to boost comments as you will almost certainly have to make your appreciation of the subject of this next photo know. Scroll down and proceed with the involuntary cooing.

Yes. I know.

The Internet Infrastructure Here Sucks

2008-09-04T17:22:00.000-07:00

Well, it does.

Seriously, having finally given up on stealing a consistent signal from my neighbors I head to where I believe there is a decent internet cafe to find out that they have neither microphones nor cameras, so I head out for another and discover that the USB extension the computers are provided with actually prevents usage of USB´s unless you bring some sort of adaptive unit. So, this post will be without pictures, maybe I will add them at a later date.

It will also be without structure as pictures usually remind me what I was going to talk about. So let´s begin.

Uh.

I´m sick again! Hooray. With luck, this could turn out to be like a weekly thing! What excitement! I don´t wanna go to the doctor as I just went and it didn´t seem to help me that much. Grah.

So, aside from contracting disease, what have I been up to?

Well, yesterday I went to buy tango shoes! And here would be a picture if such a thing were possible. And, surprise, surprise, there were none in my size! But here´s the kicker. As there were none in my size, I´m going to have them made for me! Meaning I got to selected everything from the model to the kind of leather. That´s right, leather, handmade-to-fit shoes. At what price you ask? Around 100 dollars. Eat your heart out , Primer Mundo.

What did I choose for my new look? Stay tuned...

But what about the adventure?

The trip, organized by my tango teacher, began with the premise that I would would meet up with dancing buddy Klara of Sweden, or Suezia which is phonetically similar to a country named Suizia. Don´t fuck that up.

Following my nature, I was running late and had to abandon my meeting with la Sueca in order to meet up directly with the adventurers. Curiously, I met up with Aldo, a late-comer to my tango class, of Mexican fame. I quite happily made my way to the rendevous with him trying out my Spanish. He was quite complimentary and bemused by my incorporation of Mexican slang.

We arrived at the profe´s (proh-feh, short for profesor) house and waited for one more person. I suspect that Profe makes a lot of money being a tango dancer . I know that something was up once I realized that there were only two apartments listed per floor of the rather large building we saw.

We told stories and chatted until the last member arrived. It seems that el profe knows a lot of people in the circus. No, really. Every other time he opened his mouth it was to tell us some story about his friend the clown who worked in a circus. He may also know a lion-tamer and/or some person that works for Cirque du Soleil. Sometimes the details get lost in translation.

Anyway, it seems that being a professional tango dancer can be pretty exciting.

We left, we arrived, we bought shoes. That skips over the part where I cursed this fake 50 centavo coin that had arrived in my possesion, thereby duping me into believing that I could take the bus only to have to perform the tic-tac buying, friend-begging ritual that is trying to find change in Buenos Aires (remind me to explain this).

The place was really cool, really old-timey. That would best be explained with pictures, alas. I can tell you that it smelled perfectly like a cobbler´s. Glue and leather in eye-watering abundance. It had a kind of ill-lit, dusty, timeless feel that was really accented by the intensified old-world Italian feeling I get from places away from the city center.

Speaking of vestigial Italianisms, they say ¨capo¨here kind of life we might say boss or chief. Some of you might already recognize the word from watching mafia movies or having been to Italy. For instance, a cartonero (this too, I should explain) was wheeling his cart of recyclables on by and said ¨¿Capo, una monedita?¨ ¨Capo, a little change¨and then rolled on by without stopping.

Incidentally, my reaction to a beggar that didn´t stop to beg properly was bemusement. Then, I was advised that they do this to evaluate the fear level of the walkee, someone who hesitates or stops will certainly give them change and based on the temerity of the beggar, a potential mark for more aggressive negotiaion.

Personally, I believe that this is bullshit and part of the gigantic fear porteños have regarding their city. But onward!

We asked the cobbler where we could find good food. She directed us a few blocks away. Upon telling our teacher that we planned to eat he made a face and said ¨¿Here?¨Naturally, the area we were in was rather dangerous and we would get killed there. Again. But, he accompanied us to the place and life went on. Delicious cheap pasta had inside.

Afterward, Aldo and newfound lunchmate Alena, Karla and I went on an extended walking tour in the direction of the American embassy where I intended to register to vote. Naturally, it was closed but there was a nice security guard whose English was almost totally American. Damn the Argentine practice of using the language of our across-the-pond cousins.

Unrelatedly, MY BAND HAS A CONCERT!

Oh you didn´t know I had a band? I´m in band. I´m in my capoeira instructor´s band. One day, I he told us that he was performing in a bar near my house. I gathered a friend and went. I saw that they were pretty good and later told Mario (my capoeira instructor) such. I also said ¨You know, you guys really need a trombonist¨ Mario then said "yeah." I then said "I play trombone." I went to a rehearsal, years and years of private lessons and practice finally proved their worth in front of the eyes of those who don´t think the trombone is silliest instrument in the world.

If I understand correctly, I think they think I´m the shit.

They are a reggae band, Mario raps, I want to rap, too.

Speaking of not being silly, I practice the trombone in the park here. I must, there is no other recourse. Years of painful awareness of the "nerdiness" of my instrument has caused me to avoid playing in front of the uninitiated. And by that I mean people who had not invested years and thousands in learning other "nerdy instruments" (things that are not trumpet guitar and sax).

Anyway, not only did not anyone even look at me twice, I´ve been getting the distinct impression that the trombone is a "cool instrument" here. Wtf, mate?

Example, an similar interaction between some Argentines and an American.

American Chick: Oh, you play an instrument?

Nathan: Yeah, the trombone. Supercool, right?

American Chick: (Pause) No, that is pretty cool.

Not so good, see? But,

Argentina: You play an instrument?

Nathan: Yeah, the trombone.

Argentina: Oh is that the (finger-twiddling trumpet gesture)?

Nathan: No, its the one with the (punching action slide-trombone gesture)

Argentina: What?! How cool! Jeez, what don´t you do?

Nathan: Uh, pardon me miss, I´ve never received a positive reaction to my playing the trombone before. My culture has left me unprepared for this reaction and the way you are regarding me out of the corner of your eye.

Or, after running through a tune unaccompanied in the park, Silia, the person I brought for emotional support remarks

Silia: (sighs) Bitches will want to fuck you.

While I´m still waiting on that, its a nice thought.

Anyway, I hope my grandad will pardon the poor language choice of my friends but notice that I was much classier in the way I described the same phenomenon.

Thanks and to all a good night.

The Week (or so) in Review

2008-08-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hello friends, this is Nathan speaking to you from deep within Buenos Aires.

First, let me further qualify my recent non-postage with an explanation. I was sick and went to the doctor. From my experience, that works like this: you talk to a guy at a desk that asks you insurance type questions and gives you a form and then you sit and wait for a long period of time until a doctor calls you back and talks to you for about 5 minutes before giving you a slip of paper with the name of a medicine on it. It's all arguably irrelevant as getting medicine does not require a prescription. Then you go to the guy out front who charges you 3o bucks. Not a bad deal.

Speaking of good deals, yesterday I have two sirloin steaks for six dollars apiece. They were exquisite. Today I had nine and a half empanadas for lunch. That was unwise. Go with steak.

What else have I been up to as of late? I got down to some touristing with some friends in the city center. I took along Silia of blue-haired fame to go downtown and poke around some sites that Lonely Planet insists are worth seeing. I went to the Confitería Ideal, which is a historic cafe/tango place thats been in operation since forever.

Silia and her friend Ryan whined enormously about going in. They felt that it looked cheto (cheh'toe), they couldn´t afford it, they´d be thrown out, they´d be a minimum fee etc etc. None of those things came to pass. Medialunas were of mediocre price and quality.

There are some important words in the above paragraph. Cheto is a key word of this city. It means stuck up, fancy, expensive etc. I get a sense of illegitimate luxury about it, i.e. someone is rich but in a tasteless starbucks and costco sort of way. Three for one plasma screen´s in the back of your Forerunner sort of thing. The university of Belgrano and indeed the district of Belgrano itself is held to be the epitome of cheto. They are correct.

The opposite of cheto is grasa, which literally means fat and it is perhaps this lexical ambiguity which causes it to be used less. Presumably, grasa has a negative connotation also, but I´ve never heard it as such. In fact, I´ve never heard it outside of the conversation where I ask what the opposite of cheto is.

The other important word from that paragraph was medialuna, which is a croissant. They are everywhere, and usually cost around 50 cents. They are my friends. That I eat.

Trucha, another word that they use, means carp. But it can also mean worthless. The guy scrambling around behind me trying to fix the computers is of the opinion that computers are becoming more and more trucha. This is a funny mental image and one that makes me want to wash my hands after this blog post.

This is the famous Obelisco. It´s situated on the widest avenue in the world, the 9 de Julio. I went down there with Michi the other day, just lookin´for trouble, I suppose.

We go to a variety of places. For the sake of contrast, look at this photo of scenic Chacarita, a lovely neighborhood we got lost in:

Recently Michi and I had this conversation:

M: Remember that time we got lost in Chacarita?

N: Yeah...

M: I asked around, we shouldn´t ever do that again.

Retrospectively, that should of been obvious.

Friday was international party night, where all the internationals get together in the basement of the school and party up. It´s been interesting to see how these international gatherings have evolved over time. In elementary school the imitations of local decortations were overwrought with glue and glitter. In middle school, our evolving pallettes brought greater focus on procuring foods from different parts of the world. And now in college, our desire to test the limits of the human liver have caused us to conspire to bring the local drink and drinking custom to each booth. For America, this meant Budweiser and a beer bong.

Don´t worry, we also had peanut butter.

After the party, I opted to join a cavalcade of europeos, as they had been invited to a party in some Italian guy´s apartment. Italians look exactly like Argentines except with nicer shoes and more piercings.

However, the Italian was a little too enterprising because, after accompanying the europeans to buy the requisite cheap beer and liqour, we arrived to find thirty people lounging in the street outside our destination. No landlord was about to let a party of this size take place in a district this cheto.

Untroubled, my group of French and assorted northern european Germanics decided that the only way to recoup the loss was to drink the beer warm on the stoop of the apartment and head out to Crowbar, a bar/club of some notoriety. Cognizant of the european ability to stomach immense quantities of rancid booze and techno, I skipped out to go pursue an attractive group of Ecuadorianas who had designs on attending a party held by the son of Angolan diplomat.

Sadly, this didn´t pan out either as they decided it was too far. Instead, I went with them (about 90% strangers) to someone elses party (100% strangers) in an apartment that juxtaposed the high cost of space with a total dearth of furnishment other than upturned bottles of alcohol. The apartment, which had countless rooms and a patio, also had a desiginated room for flirtation and upwards living neighbors that dropped waterballoons on people to quell the racket.

It also had a drunk chick that stumbled around the room like a warped character from the Great Gatsby with a bowl of what I will not call jello shots because they were too impatient to put them into shot glasses. After being banged in the teeth with a spoon a few times, I decided that they had probably drank all the alcohol before they put it into the mix and accepted my hostess generous offer. I don´t like alcohol, I don´t like jello, the combination might have been livable had the jello not-shots lived up to their lethal reputation and introduced me to a another level of being. However, I was correct in my prediction and mostly it tasted like dirty jello.

That is all folks.

As of Late

2008-08-27T06:17:00.000-07:00

What has Nathan as of late?

Well, mostly he's been sick, so you must excuse his absence.

Speaking of absence, Nathan has been informed that his father has given some of his blog address to some of his high school teachers. One Mrs Hunt and one Mr Appier of Spanish and Chemistry class respectively. Welcome to the network honored lady and sir.

I wish I could bring good tidings to welcome myself back to the blog, but I'm afraid first and foremost, I have pictures of what I've been eating in the homestay again. If you are an exchange student here or anyone who has been in earshot when the topic of host families has come up, you have already heard of my perennial favorite, the "Bucket o' Carbs in Generic Flavorless White Sauce with Sliced Salsicha AKA Hot Dog"..Yes Ladies and Gent's, I braved the jungly depths of the kitchen with camera in hand so that I could bring you a little closer to my experience.
Who says I'm not cut out to be a photo journalist? Surely, these hazards are something like that which I would face in the field.

Let's have some pictures of myself, shall we? I swear I don't do these to satisfy any narcissistic personal need, its really an extension of my mom's genetic narcissim in that she she demands to know if her offspring is dead or some such.

And so it is with great pleasure, that introduce to you... Myself!That's only one side of the widest avenue in the world, the 9 de julio.

And this is what happens when you have no legislation governing what kind of advertising can be shown where.

And the scarf isn't mine or my fault, it was freezing, I lost my jacket and I went on this trip to buy a sweater.

Finally, I appreciate the disorderly society tendency to leave potentially dangerous/awesome photo ops lying around without so much as a caution sign or sleepy security guard to deter you.

There, I have at least posted something. I may post something of some higher quality later in the day. Enjoy!

New Family Member

2008-08-21T20:33:00.000-07:00

This is my berimbau.

People Like Pictures and Videogames

2008-08-20T19:22:00.000-07:00

Well it's true. They do.

My food situation here leaves something to be desired. In a country known for its steak, wine and pasta, I still precious little of all three. I see pasta sometimes, but it is uniformly plain and re-heated via steam after its already been boiled. It's soggy, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Recently, I was served a dessert that encapsulated so well my dining experience here that when I saw it, I said to myself, I must take a picture of that.

I now present to you an exploration in two parts of what I eat routinely.

This is a dessert. Actually, it is a combination of two desserts that I am sometimes served on separate occasions. It appeared from my initial scan that the cake had been placed inside the bowl and then the jello was poured on top before both were placed in the fridge. This photo shows you the anti-gravitational property the desert had acquired as a result, as well as house-mate Naír's realization that I might think something was wrong with the food.

Sadly, I was unable to photograph the result of mixing the cake's porous yet enduring structure with a reinforcing bouncy semi-solid. Needless to say that I've notified the embassy here and I don't think we'll be hearing about any American soldiers being without armor plates in the future.

In other news I would like to share a happening with you. I play a really lowtech game to amuse myself in my downtime called Urban Dead. You play a zombie or human in a zombified city. The game itself is quite simple, an RPGish slow-placed browser game with about three different types of buttons to press. Attached to this simple game program itself is a highly sophisticated society of contributing users with an extensive wiki that chronicles their heroes, history, technological/gaming advances, etc. It can be quite overwhelming for a beginner.

This background is actually irrelevant, I just wanted to prep you a little for this excerpt from todays play:

Half and Half shot you with a shotgun for 10 damage. (3 days ago) ...and again.
Half and Half shot you with a pistol for 5 damage. (3 days ago) ...and again. ...and again. ...and again.
Half and Half extracted a DNA sample from you. (3 days ago)
Half and Half shot you with a pistol for 5 damage. (3 days ago)
Half and Half said "Sorry about killing you. But I do not have the headshot skill. Still 10 APs to stand is a bitch. Get with a zombie horde/gang, Ck the Wiki. Button below the city map. Also don't sleep inside. Might get killed..." (3 days ago)
Half and Half shot you with a pistol for 5 damage. (3 days ago)
You were killed by Half and Half. (3 days ago)
Half and Half dumped your body out onto the street.

Sometimes, unlife is like that.

Nathan Puts His Sexual Orientation on the Line!

2008-08-16T19:52:00.000-07:00

Yes folks, it´s finally here. The report of my sexual compass-spinning trip to Plop!

Here are my manly and stalwart traveling companions. From left to right they are Charly (spelled that way and no other, dammit) myself, Cristian, the dancing fiend from Colombia, Mateos?, Agustina and finally at the bottom, Luz, of plucked-eyebrows renown.
These are Luz´s finger nails. Yes, that is his sweater and yes, they do match. I hope that this begins to present to you exactly what level of homosexuality we are working with here in Plop!

And sadly, ladies and gentleman, that is as much warming up I can give you, in the photographic sense. From here, we dive into the insanity, the depravity, the misty depths of gender role/identity. I shall, by means of narrative passage, offer you a opportunity to change your mind, as I describe the events that lead to Plop!

How did I come to be invited to go to Plop!, a gay club, when I myself am not gay? What provoked me to accept such an offer, especially in a city where the men are so notoriously... forthright, shall we say?

I was recently and graciously invited work on a music video by my classmate Charly. I accepted, of course, thrilled to be involved in something for once and thrilled to be speaking Spanish and hanging out with such a cool bunch of humans. The music video centered on a group dance and for this reason required people with dancing capabilities. Therefore, theater students. Therefore gay. Sorry, Eric.

I heard legend of Plop! when Charly, some others and I were lounging around in somebody´s apartment. Some strange club in wildnerness, where there is stage show with crazy dancers with limitless energy, all held in old theater. It seemed like a good idea to me as it would fulfil my desire to try the vida noche porteño. I suggested that I would like to go and I was told that they would surely take me. Interested parties note that at this point I had no idea that the place was gay.

Time passes, Charly informs me in class that the coming friday they, and therefore me, would go to Plop! I accepted, naturally. More time passes, Thursday rolls around, I look up the name online. Google: Plop! Buenos Aires. What returns is a bunch of hits surrounding a big gay fiesta held in some club somewhere. I´m convinced that this cannot be the place, I thought there had to be a club that shared the name somewhere else in the city. Wishful thinking, the staff of ISA soon corrected this notion of mine.

I was now faced with a question. Did I still want to go this club? Normally, I don´t even like clubs; my limited experience suggests that they are noisy, smelly and boring. This new gay factor was tipping the scales in a whole new way. Don´t get me wrong, I have nothing against homosexuality. I love it. Lesbians in porno (Im well aware this has little to do with real lesbianism), and well-dressed, potentially competitor men that can dance and cook and are uninterested in the women that lust after them seems like a winning combination for me.

It was this little conversation I had with my friend Juan Pablo, when he was talking to me about Plop! He said that I was likely to get ¨¨tocado¨ (touched) there on account of my highly anglo appearance. This was back in the time when I thought that Plop! was just any old club so I said ¨Sweet!¨Sexually-aggressive women were alright by me, though I was confused as to why they were in this club and not any other club in Buenos Aires/the World.

This conversation took a whole new light as Google´s harvest rolled down the screen. Though I sympathized with the horror stories of grabby porteño men told to me by my female compatriots, I was not sure if that was something I was ready to experience for myself.

Friday rolls around, Charly asks me if I want to go. I review the results of the formal and informal polls and delay answering the message. I figured that Charly was straight and he was going, how bad could it be? I also thought about what exactly it could be to be ¨tocado¨.

I fessed up. I asked Charly if it was normal for people who aren´t gay to go to gay clubs. He said: of course! I said: Alright, so I´m going.

And that was that. Chances are, they´d bought the tickets and though I later wanted to back out and attend a capoeira function early in the morning on Saturday, it was too late. The die was cast.

I sent Charly a text message around midnight (yes, that´s when people begin to think about going out here) asking if it was still on. He said yes and that I needed to hall my ass across town immediately. I spent some time picking my most heterosexual clothing and deciding not to put on deoderant or shave before hustling out.

Some dashing around, meeting and collecting people, waiting for his Charlyness to bathe and at 2 oclock, we set out. My heterosexual wingmate Charly seemed awfully preoccupied with his hair.

Naturally, someone forgot the tickets and there was some miscounting and rumination that it would be too late to get in and I thought that I might be able to walk away from this one.

No.

We finally catch a long bus-ride and we arrive at around 3:00 and the party is in full swing. A crowd in the streets trying to buy tickets and we zip buy them into the club. The place is a converted theater with the seats removed. A stage with a huge pit in the front, overflowing with gyrating bodies.

Charly cuts through the mountain of people and deposits us stage-side, right under a speaker. The aural assault had begun. Then, as I regained myself I looked up at the stage and I saw this:

Meet the first member of Plop!'s lipsyncing and dancing cast. As you may have noticed, Plop!'s theme for the night was McDonalds! Plop! This meant a cast of characters parading around in a nightmarish version of the obesity icon and his friends. For example:

The horror, the horror.

From this photo, you might be confused as to what a tall and attractive looking female is doing in this scene.

But this next photo clears it all up, doesn't it? Oh alas, this is the closest thing to female attention I've been getting lately in Buenos Aires.

Really truly though, I was having a great time. And as you can see the in the middle right of this next photo, so were other members of the audience. That particular pair continued for about 20 minutes. And then, when they were finished, another dynamic duo began to do some face sucking in the exact same location. It was like a revolving door of homosexuality.

Left to Right: Luz, Cristian, Charly, Juan Pablo, Unknown Face Suckers. Agustina. Front Row: Giselle, Lucas.

This was without question everyone's favorite photograph.

And the night raged on. But what about the tocado-ing, you ask. Well, that did come to pass. I gradually became aware that I was the object of a certain type of glance that I had given and had never conceived that I might receive. I suppose that's one level of a certain kind of tocado. At least one group of enterprising young portenhos thought it would be a good idea to take my picture. Then, some member of my group thought it would be a better idea if he grabbed me by the chin and directed my gaze at the interested parties. Somehow, eye contact was the last thing I was looking for.

Another guy stepped up into my space purposefully as I was in the process of turning around to avoid the process. I looked him up and down and continued turning in what I retrospectively realize to be a classic bitch move. Whoops. At least now we know how these things happen.

Finally, one guy threw one hand on my waist and the other in the air in what appeared to be some kind of invitation to dance. I turned and evaded. Another grabbed me on that hand and I believe said "vamos" or "let's go" in what was certainly an invitation to something. And the kicker is, my group informed that I had provoked them with my "sensual" dancing. Show of hands, who thinks I am capable of sensual dancing? Well apparently, I am, so stuff it. Nyah!

After that magical encounter, my energy had pretty much fled and I succumbed to the clock. It was then about 6 in the morning. We finally made our way out the door at 6:30 and I was home by 7:30. I was unable to put the final jewel in my crown of porteno unhealthyness by eating breakfast before returning home because I refuse to eat another piece of McDonalds ever again.

Oh forgot to mention. Cristian, in the yellow, is the kind of all dance ever. Score one point for Colombia. Goodnight all.

PS Charly's not straight, either.

Poll of the Moment

2008-08-15T09:31:00.000-07:00

Do I go with these sorts to a gay night at a club? It's reputed to be raucous. I'm counting votes. Weigh in.

COSPLAY!!!

2008-08-12T04:25:00.000-07:00

Yes, Cora, get excited.

I went to a cosplay fiesta in the Buenos Aires Japanese garden.

For those who don't know, Cosplay is technically a Japanese derived from the forced cross-breeding of costume and play that results in a wonky little baby word that they parent words are really quite unsure what to do with.
Observe:
Generally speaking, people pick a character from an anime show or videogame and try their damndest to look just like them. It was pretty much like the above picture all over this rather large park. People in outrageous costume, general uncertainty when it came to gender. That one with the pink hair is male, for instance.

It's has an internet reputation of being hyper-dorky. This is baroque dork. And, of course, like all things in the world, it has an internet fetish life, which is roundly ridiculed by humor website all over the web.

The following picture really sums it up for me:

On the right is the good of Cosplay and on the left is the... something.

I went there actually to see my friend Silia, who was to play the Queen of Hearts (Alice in Wonderland) in some theater they were doing.

Yes, Silia (with the blue hair) is quite strange. I'm shit with names so I can't tell you the name of the girl on the right, but her red hair is a nice contrast, don't you agree?

Fans of the series will enjoy:

That was really directed at Ian and Co. if they're tuning in. That's a rather life-like Naruto image, a the main character from a series of the same name.

There were some high quality costumes running around. People started freaking out when this little guy showed up:
Apparently from Kingdom Hearts. And quite popular.

I think that's all for now. Photos from gaymusicvideodanceathon at a later date. They're on my facebook for any interested parties.

Nathan Late!

2008-08-09T19:16:00.000-07:00

The last few days have been action packed.

Thursday was my second radio production class, one of my precious classes with Argentinos. My group was to record a script that we threw together the week before. It was sort of in the style of Lady's Man of Saturday Night Live fame. I played an visiting American who was having trouble expressing his feelings to a lady. I was advised to buy her a bikini.

Also, a kid who a knew only distantly at this point in the story asked me what I was doing tomorrow. I told him that I was doing nothing cause that's all I ever got to do, and he asked me to join him and some peep to film something. Pending spanish skills, I was fuzzy on the details.

There was a lot of downtime as we waited for the the studio to rotate through the other groups and so I got to know some of my classmates better.

I met Michelle AKA Michi, yet another Ecuadorian. I found out she does Capoeira and was looking for a location here in BsAs. So we planned to go together on Friday, which was good as I had not gone in weeks.

I also ate lunch with classmate Jaen-Carlos, Peruvian and provider of Peruvian restaurant. He and another Carlos from my class are evangelical Christians, but seem to be good sorts in spite of that. It seems that evangelicalism here is less frothing-at-the-mouth crazy that in the US.

Come Friday, we went, though she was re-late to meet me. It was a good thing I waited, because after capoeira, Michi and I hung out. Not only that, we went to the big Chinatown shindig being held on account of the Olympics.

The Chinese can really put on a show. Chinatown was full to the brim with people, there was a stage, a band, and a revelation that as Argentines are so European, they don't take to dancing much.

Also, there was food. Specifically, there was pig ear, tongue and chicken foot. I bought what turned out to be alot of that stuff. Imagine my surprise as the hip-looking Spanish-speaking chinese kid working the counter took my selected ear and tongue and converted them into a rather large bag of chopped meat. Michi and I, we ate it all.

That chicken foot was problematic. We had no idea how to eat it. When we asked, we got the limited explationation "little by little" and then, later, a demonstration as to how to break off the digits and get at the meat. Delish. Still not feeling sick, so I guess that wasn't such a bad idea after all. Pictures to come.

Then Michi and I hit up a place for pizza, where we ate hawaiian style pizza. I tip my hat to Nicholas, who adores this pizza.

I also talked to Michi. She is re-cool. She loves videogames. What more qualification does a human need in my eyes? She also seems re-smart and, though a no-doubt brilliant English speaker, does not speak to me in that barbarous tongue.

And today, what a day its been. I rose at 9(ish) to meet Charlie for his mysterious film project. Things I did not know: Who was coming, what were doing, who was filming, who was being filmed.

I showed up late to the meeting point. Seems like half people showed up later than me.

Man, I'm short on details right now. Its' 5 in the morning, I just got back from being with these people as I have all day.

Short version: we filmed them dancing to this reallllly asinine song. They were all theater/dance kids. Read: gay as a three dollar bill. Also, exceptionally cool people. I finally got that wow you're foreign, what do you mean people never kiss each other in greeting in your country, attention that I'd been searching for.

We worked on this project forever, like 10-7. And never ate. Poor Michi hadn't eaten all day. Also, they put a camera in my hands. I wonder if they thought I had any training in this sort of thing. I sure hope not. I was told to film first plane or entire plane or something. I hope it all turned out.

Eventually, we ate in McDonalds, where I got more delightful hey, you're foreign attention. As well as a blitz of accents. There was ecuadorian, argentines, myself and a colombian.

And yeah, I ate a McD's. That makes it twice here. It's a thing of vast importance here. It is the place to meet. I tried to explain how my culture thinks differently about McD's. Tried.

A little break and then reunion at midnight in this girl giselle's apartment. I hung out with Charlie, this colombian kid whose name escapes me right now. Totally badass dudes, one and all. Charlie is teh cool. In a phrase, I was told that Charlie "is always making plans". I.e. this music video.

The Colombian dude. A font of kindness and information. From Barranquias? Is that Victor's home?

A final note, this goes out to Eric, who told me many times about what it was like to work with actors who are very frequently extremely outgoing, generally bizarre and gay. Wow. I now understand your inability to convey to me in words the sensation.

Anyway, coherency is obviously on a downslide. I've been up for abut 20 hours now. In short, a great time, great fun, great people, great quantity of Spanish speaking.

Nathan
PS I miss Mexicans

Normal Day, Uncommon Unponderings

2008-08-07T04:57:00.000-07:00

I got up early at 8 o'clock, to get to a class that began at 9:40. I failed to spring out of bed and I had to choose breakfast instead of showering today. I got to school around 9:45 to discover that actually that mental note I had made yesterday [You have an early class tomorrow] meant 8 instead of 9:40. Whoops. Attendance is not yet being kept, so not a huge problem, I still had a class at 10:20.

I sat greasily in the computer lab burning time, and went to my 10:20 class. Again, as there was the last time I attempted this, it was not in the aula that my horario said it should be in. Chewing on my tongue and trying to make the best of the situation, I decided to see my aconsejora in order to find some new classes to try out before Monday. However, she would not be in till 12. Thwarted yet, again.

So, I'd already checked my mail and it was beginning to look like a low-activity day, so I pooled my willpower and walked away from the computer lab and out of the school to look around the immediate neighborhood.

This walk turned out to be extremely satisfying. It led downhill into a little depression of relatively calm streets and relatively leafy parks. Well, more like a wide median with trees on it. But naytheless, I added a Greek restaurant to my list of foreign restaurants I will eat in at some point there and so I enjoyed.

I began, on this walk, to understand my neighborhood a little a better. Belgrano is constantly described as an upper-middle class barrio. Walking around leafy Olleros Avenue, I felt what that means. There are little shops that meet the needs of the somewhat wealthy. Leather stores, electronics stores, attended by well-groomed, deep-voiced salesmen that somehow add a sense of dignity to the sale of earbud headphones.

This peace and order is artificial. How could I forget nutty Avenida Cabildo that rages away just uphill? But I felt like they deserve it. They have something to escape from, Buenos Aires is unrelenting.

It did help me place my surroundings on my personal cultural landscape. If this same neighborhood were in suburban Kansas, I suppose it would be a bit like the Village, which is a pleasant outdoor mall/quasi plaza in my home-region.

It is from this sentiment that I am drawing the conclusion that my barrio here is largely the same as that at home. A sense of familiarity, yes, but not totally positive. My neighborhood, though as far as I'm concerned a beautiful place to live, is home to a sizable yuppie population that derives great satisfaction from the purchase of earbuds and not really a cultural center.

I did return to the school only for my adviser to give grudgingly (I assert that she begrudges helping me) some information for classes that had happened already earlier in the week.

So I headed for another walk, trying to derive some meaning from day.

And I realized that I live very close to what is referred to as a "shopping street".

I might be re-describing the wheel for anyone that has lived in a real city before, but this concept is quite foreign to me. Take some interior stretch of mall. You know, with the plants, benches and kiosks in the center and the pseudo-organized lanes of people walking, window shopping, etc. Now move the walls of that mall about 10 meters in both directions and bulldoze the benches and plants and throw a major thoroughfare in there instead.

It is exactly like a mall, exactly, except for that extremely busy road full of honking, exhaust-spewing traffic in the middle. It is, by outward appearances at an uncrowded time of day, like any other part of the city. Shops with big glass windows, kioscos selling candies and phone cards, the occasional cafe and confiteria.

But throw a ululating mob of people in there (and Argentines have been known to ululate) and I recognize it for what it is. Something about the mass of humanity draws all the elements together. You notice that some of the kiosks are open-air and playing music. Formerly charming bakeries are then revealed to be the local variant of the diabetes-dealing cookie/fried batter shops that placate screaming babies on the merry-go-round at your local center of commerce.

One fundamental difference between the consuming landscape of Argentina and the US is that, in the US we usually have one store of a certain type and reasonable size that is pretty much the only one of its type for a 15-minute drive in any direction. Example, there is a music shop in the Village and if you don't want to go there, you have to go drive the other direction of that road for a few miles until you wind up at another music store that is largely the same but staffed by kids from a different high school.

Buenos Aires could be said to follow the same model, but on a physical scale about 1/100th the size and you will rarely find shops that sell something besides the genre of item you are looking for. That is, instead of a large store and 15-minute drive, you have a small, dorm room-sized shop that sells only fruits and vegetables that has a cousins one block away in every direction.

This concept gets funny when applied to galerías, which are what Argentines probably consider to be malls. You walk down the street and eventually spy a wide opening in the glass/stone wall to your right. Seeking respite, you step into it, thinking that it is the entryway to a very large store, such as a Sears of T.J. Maxx. It is not, it is a galería.

The size of a modest grocery store, a galería must be the conscious porteño effort to imitate an American mall. It is all, all wrong. In my opinion, one of the key characteristics of a mall is its total uneconomy of space. Huge ceilings, excessively wide internal track, with pointless kiosks selling sunglasses in the center. The shops themselves should have an enormous quantity of space available but should strike to use all of it but having racks of clothing full of every style/size combinations.

A galería does not do this. First of all, in contrast to the streets that they are on, they seem to be uniformly devoid of people. They do have the high ceilings and wide internal space, but it is less a track and more a amorphous, unplanned blob. Then, the shops themselves are tiny hole-in-the-walls and seem to carry about one variety of clothing in every size. Furthermore, reapplying their belief concerning city sidewalks, it seems that each business gets to control the tiling in front of the store, essentially transforming the floor into a seizure-inducing tiling sample catalog. They are uniform only in their state of disrepair and genericness.

At any rate, all of this has somehow made me feel more at ease. I have attempted to despise my immediate surroundings since middle school doing so now is probably a sign of increasing comfort.

Ah and PS this journey was begun by the need to find a place to buy a new coat to replace my irish one which is now lost. I've never had to make these horrifyingly heavy style decisions before. Can someone give me some kind of advice on how to shop and figure out what is in-style and if I'm paying a good price for it? Is there some sort of lifeskill I missed out on while my mother and sister did all my shopping for me?

First Week of School!

2008-08-04T09:25:00.000-07:00

One, my thing for the late night goth hoe-down, did not come to pass. I am sorry. I was sleepy. Instead, I made mexican salsa with my peruvian-american expat friend. She thinks she is going to go to school here for all of college. Frankly, I am skeptical. If she reads my blog, she may defend herself on the comments page, as that appears to be what people like to do.

So what am I taking? First, know that I am following my lifelong commitment to noncommitment and my college-long commitment to overloading. I aim to take seven classes instead of the agreed upon five. Why you ask? Because I'm devious.

I came to this country thinking that I would complete approximately half of Spanish major. Ten credits needed for the major and 5 gained from the study abroad. There was some vagary about two of my credits needing to be literature courses and 5 electives other than literature, and I wasn't sure how that'd all mesh with the courses I'm taking here. All I knew is that whatever courses I took here, I would receive credit for at Lawrence.

Well dig this, kiddies. I can take the lit courses here to replace the analagous classes at Lawrence. Fabulous considering that the lit courses here are a) about precolombian cultures or modern latin american literature and therefore more interesting than the tired European snooze-fests I would be forced to endure at Lawrence and b) very, very easy.

In fact, all the courses for international students are easy. This upset me for awhile, because I thought I would die before I got some intellectual stimulation, but then it struck me: why not just take a whole bunch of these courses and do as much as the Spanish major as you can?

So, I'm taking the two easy as all hell lit courses two replace the devilishly difficult and boring ones at Lawrence and 3 more classes with internationals that are extremely easy. I'm also going to take 2 classes with Argentines which will certainly provide a challenge and maybe they'll even be fun. I know one will be, it's a radio production class, meaning I'm learning how to write radio scripts and be on the air.

For those of you keeping score, that means I'll have all of my five electives covered, plus the two lit courses. Plus my spanish AP credit and the one course I have already done, we're looking at something like nine courses, plus or minus the caprice of the registrar. I think some evil laughter is in order.

I do need to decide what that other class with argentines, will be. There is some class called theory of human communication that these law students take. It's about globalization and urban subcultures and a potpourri of things. I get the vibe that its some sort of freshman seminar thing which could be good or bad. The kids in the class aren't big advocates of the course, however, they are also mostly female, attractive and verbal, which could make up for the potential boredom.

But there are a lot of practical hand's on courses like the radio class. I know they have a cooking class for instance that my friend is doing, another is doing a creative writing class and I've heard rumor of some class called international negotiation where you learn to read body language from different cultures.

I'm also meeting cool people lately, a friend from Ecuador I have made, she is the one that keeps me abreast of these weird-ass gatherings such as that of the previous post. Also her friend Sef, which is short for Serefim which, yes, comes from Serephim, the specific class of Angel.

Also, shout out to Denny, Ian, Dillon and Sam, who do not read this blog, my Ecuadorian friend and her circle play The Masquerade. Most far reaching coincidence in the whole world. Those who aren't in the know, this is the role-playing game I sometimes admit to playing that is my nerdiest conceit. I feel that I must play it here in order to plant some sort of flag for nerdom. That and it'd be great for my Spanish, right?

Also, more internationals, got to know some German girls, hopefully will reconnect with them, and also some french and a japanese girl. May go to a jazz club with the ultimate. Toolaroo.

Also, my mom has informed me that my grandad is in town, so there is a high likelihood that he is reading this post. Heya Grandaddy, I eat steak in your name. Also, when I see a gray-haired porteño in the street, I recall that that is the generation that actually knows how to tango and that my grandad would certainly be among them, cutting a rug. And rest assured Grandad, I only spend a certain portion of my funds on wine, women and song. Mostly women and song, anyway. And by that I mean mostly song. And not much of that, either. But anyway, here's to a more exciting weekend to come.

Seriously though, Granddaddio, I often think of you while I'm here and ask myself what you would do when faced with my difficult decisions. Such as picking between the renowned bife de chorizo or opting for the palatially-challenging morcilla sausage. Or between the dark, curly-haired Angelino, or charmingly-accented frauline. These are trying times indeed, thank goodness we still have the Greatest Generation to guide us.

One more attempt at seriousness. I do lift my fork and my camera with my grandad in mind. I make mental notes of things to tell you/him when I get back and keep trying to conceive of a method I could send these steaks back with.

I don't yet know what the what week holds. I'm trying to dig into the city, get to the interesting, secret and cheap parts. I'll keep you all informed.

Warning

2008-07-31T17:45:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow I am to go to a Goth/heavy-metal club. The place opens at two. Its called Reaxxion. I will report on my presumed return.

Intrepid Nathan

Salta

2008-07-29T18:41:00.000-07:00

I feel an obligation to tell you all about my trip to Salta last week and to share my pictures with you, but as I get farther from that time, my desire to do so fades. My daily adventures are interesting right now. I will therefore spray about some pictures and explain them as much as I feel like and hopefully you'll get some kind of sense about how it was.

Lets do some buildings:

These are all churches. This last one is in the main square of Salta, the 9 de julio or as I prefer to pronounce it, the nine duh hoolio. People buzz around in the plaza during all hours of the day. It's got to be the only urban green space I've been in where people aren't cautioning my about the transvestites that come out at night.

Can you find whitey?

I actually didn't leave Salta much. I found way too much fun hanging out with the international/interesting people to be found at the hostel. I was given steak by one group of people, but they turned out to be evangelical Christians, damn it all. It seemed I was to exchange my ear for their asado. So I retorted by excusing myself to go eat dinner with my friends, the Jews! Pictured above.

Observation: when there is a conversation between myself and evangelical Christians, they do most of the talking, when its between myself and Jews, I do most of the question asking. If I were president of Evangeland, I would review the conversion procedure.

I also met a family from Ecuador, who showed me the mystery of making rice and promises to dine me while they're in Bs As, a Chileno cactus collector who accompanied me to the Quebrada de Humuaca and miscellanious other: my australian roommate rob, my british roommates from oxford. I had great fun with Robert. We made rice, before the Ecuadorians educated us as to how, observe:

You may notice that the rice is purple. After totally failing to get the correct water to rice ratio, Robert and I experimented with various ingredients we believed could save our rice. Here is a list of things which do not save rice:
Lemon
Sugar
Wine
Prayer

Also pictured is devil-woman Veronica. I might politely refer to her as a scoundrel. Fact: she flirted with me vigorously, she is moving to Germany. Allegation: she is getting married in Germany. I'm scandalized.

Pictured here is Veronica's less evil counterpart, Mariana. Mariana was the girl at the bus terminal that assaulted me with talk of a promised land called Iskay Huasi, the name of my hostel. Initially skeptical of people trying to get me to buy things in places of public transit, I was eventually swayed by her pretty pictures, face and offer to pay my cab fare. She's an exceptionally nice human being who humored my Spanish whilst speaking to me in vaguely Jamaican English. My search for a Argentine who speaks no English goes on unabated.

Also, my trip out of Salta to Jujuy, (pronounced in such a sway that makes me think of a wind tunnel infested with molasses) I saw the Quebrada of Humuaca, which is a beautiful colorful place. Lookee:

I also met some half-Chileno Hollanders, one of which was quite obsessed with Mexican food and language. The other could play a little of this weird local instrument which is like a oddly tuned 12-string ukulele. Matt, you want one? Oh, I'll take your silence to indicate a non-patronage of my blog.

The people of los pueblitos of Jujuy are really something special. They make it look normal to live in a adobe house with a door of corrugated aluminum. I guess I've never known a lot of subsistence farmers before.

Nathan "No Entiendo Ingl'es" Lane signing off.

No Babies Pictured Here

2008-07-27T17:11:00.000-07:00

I'm returned from Salta. A grueling twenty hour bus ride that began with my favorite element of the human world. Babies.

I'm sure most of my readers are familiar with my hatred for these larval humans, but in case there is a Nathan-novitiate out there, I will summarize:

Babies are fat, bald, poorly-proportioned sub-humans who have few basic functions which they accomplish with alarming efficiency. They eat, they shit, they grow, they cry, and they rob you of all time which you might have spent on improving yourself or the world around you. I cheered when my asshole 10th grade English teacher got a kid and I combat daily the biological clocks of people upon whom I don't wish a fate worse than death.

I am happy hating children and waiting for the day I am old enough to get a vasectomy. My spreading reputation prevents me from having much contact with them, but in Argentina, it seems, the fools are still reproducing. And worse yet, they are putting them on buses.

My bus. My 20-hour bus ride bus. The one where the seats are too short to support my head and there are little boxes that lesser humans can put their feet in for comfort. There were babies on this bus. Two of them. To my left. Directly.

One of these puffy maggot-creatures cried for two hours straight. That is one hundred and twenty minutes of unrelenting wailing. Oh, and here is a bit of culture shock. Apparently, the Spanish trilled R manifests itself early in the speech development of these little Argentines. That is to say for seven-thousand eight-hundred seconds, this baby made noise like rattlesnake trying to mate with a race car.

Horror of horrors, this thing had a sister. One capable of walking, falling and therefore distracting her incompetent mother from the one screaming child she already could not handle. Naturally, being an abomination, this creature would cry too, her relatively-developed vocal apparatus giving her the volume her squawking brood-mate could only aspire to.

Why, yes. Yes, the mother was 6-months pregnant with a third child. Of course she was, how could she have been anything else? Frankly, I was surprise that she didn't cast the stentorian mite from her lap to give birth to her third little wretch right then and there.

I maintained my sanity by imagining all the scenarios in which I could kill them and translating one-liners I could say to her or the other passengers:

Supongo que no podemos ponerlos con el equipaje.
-I suppose we can't put them with the suitcases.

No encajarán en el baño.
- They probably won't fit in the toilet.

Aca señora, ese deber ayudar.
[En ese momento, yo le doy una percha]

Oops, I forgot to translate that one.

Thank all creatures in existence that there was this women who sat behind me, whose singing was both pleasant and effective in silencing the unholy cacophony, infinitely better than the combined care of the actual mother and her gray-haired attendant.

I'm serious about the unholy bit. When that baby would scream and roll his R's, it sounded like he was possessed by a demon.

Naturally, the little blight ran out of energy just as he was getting off the bus. He slept peacefully on his mother's shoulder, pale eyelids covering the unseeing coals of his hell-gazers.

If ever again this happens to me, I will lock myself in the bathroom for the duration of the trip. The scent of the high-protein Argentine diet is a much cleaner way to die.

Baby Killer

Lately

2008-07-24T06:14:00.000-07:00

Hey Gentle Readers,

I thought that I´d make a mini-post about where I am and whats going on because cora gets sad if I don´t post all the time.

I´m in Salta, which is in the Andes-influenced north of argentina. People are much browner and friendlier than they are in Buenos Aires. Also, they think my United states heritage is something special, which is a nice change.

I went on all day trip yesterday to the Quebrada de Humauaca (sp?) which is an UNESCO site known for its scenic beauty. It is really unique. The mountains are composed of crazy colors. When I get back to my laptop, I will post some landscape fotos that you can yawn at.

I love the pueblitos, which are these farming towns that run up and down the valley. Adobe houses thrown together from miscellanious parts, corrogated steel doors etc. I suppose that its poverty by some definition, but the people seem to be satisfied. There are few beggars etc.

I´ve met many people here. Ignacio from Chile, Mariana who works at this hostel, a family from Ecuador, an Australian guy I talked to for all of last night about our countries and we made fun of England together.

Another Australian named Simon Turner. Quite a character. Says he is in Mensa, has no job and has been a professional snowboarder. Personally, I´d like to believe it. Somebody should google that shit for me. Also a professional chef and speaks japanese. His sexual exploits are legendary in the hostel.

Today, I don´t know what I´m doing. I am meeting Mariana later today and maybe doing something friday night with her. She´s cool. Speaks English, lamentably, but puts up with my broken spanish, too.

Also, South America has manifested itself in my bowels again, so my activities will be muted for today as I try to stay within range of a toilet. Retrospectively, trying a different empanada from a street vendor from every town I went to in the Quebrada was probably an germy game of russian roulette.

Cuidate!
Nathan

PS Oh yeah, more bad news. I lost my irish jacket a week ago and my phone this last week. I am quite bummed about the russian coat. Hopefully, I can find something to replace the coat-shaped hole in my materialistic heart.

Iguazu Falls, Assorted Dalliances

2008-07-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

Finally, a return to wordy form. Enjoy this immense update and imagine my sister wincing at my egregious offenses against concision.

This last weekend, I went to Iguazú Falls, set piece of the new Indiana Jones movie, Xth natural wonder of the world, and damn far away.

Yes, Iguazú is hardly a short trip on the Subte away. Iguazú National Park is located in a little itty-bitty piece of Argentina that pokes in Brazil, near as I can tell, to have Iguazú Falls be in Argentina. No, no, this trip helped me realize the gigantic nature of the country I live in. It also let me get out of Buenos Aires. Good.

I rode some 16 hours on gigantic, double-decker bus, referred to, interestingly, as a micro. I could be wrong about that, Argentine Spanish appears to have a robust vocabulary for referring to buses with at least three distinct names for buses that have distinct functions. Whatever.

This trip was punctuated with, first, a trip to Jesuit ruins in the region of Posados, capital city of aforementioned itty-bitty district of Misiones a land famous for its red earth and cross-pollination with the Guaraní culture and language.

They're rather large and hard to photograph, so work with me:

They date from the 1700's which is pretty old and pretty new by ruin standards here. It's a ruin, to be sure and several hundreds years old, yes, but it's not some pre-Columbian monolith that stands to frustrate Euro-centric notions of history.

Also, its a ruin because of a war, if I understood the guide correctly. So it's appearance of great age is slightly unmerited.

But, hopefully you can see the effect of this region's red earth, which I think is slightly responsible for the red coloration of these buildings.

Observe. Red. See?

My experience with the Jesuits comes primarily from the movie the Mission which I was required to watch in my high school spanish class. I used this to fill in the gaps that my Spanish left between me and our tour guide.

Jesuits came, worked with indigenous, organized them into self-sustaining communities whereas the damn Portugese just enslaved everybody. Eventually the royalty got tired of the competition and expelled them. Portuguese wanted more slaves and hence, ruins.

Not all of its red ruins, blue sky, desert-looking stuff. There are some extremely satisfying jungley bits. Don't get excited, though, its not actually jungle. Still sub-tropical. I'll get there someday.

We returned to the bus and headed onward. The next break we had was for lunch at an estancia, or ranch/farm. Here is a bad photo. This estancia was a huge 1000 acre venture that accept tourists for lunch occasionally. We hung out in a little compound type thing that was surrounded by good view and tea growing fields. There we ate choripan, essentially an Argentine bratwurst and drank fresh-squeezed orange juice and yerba mate.

For those not in the know, mate is the national drink of argentina and the Rio Plata. Throughout Argentina and especially Uruguay, the people run around with little fist-sized brown gourds with silver straws dug into a sodden mass of leaves and a boring and modern looking plastic thermos containing just below boiling water (don't boil the leaves!) to refill every once in a while. It contains no caffeine, the say, but instead contains matein, a stimulant and hunger-suppressant that has no side-effects.

Ah, but how does it taste? Awful, I'm sad to report. It comes from a tree and that's pretty much what I thought it tasted like. I'm sure coffee-drinkers can take the stuff, but I don't willingly subject myself to such bitterness willingly.

Also at the estancia, a trip to the secador, where they dry the harvested mate leaves.
We departed the merry enclave of mate and orange juice sipping and walked along the famous red dirt of the region. Along the way, we saw some delightfully Latin-American looking brightly -colored corrugated-steel tool sheds. There was even a dog sleeping outside one. Then a door opened and a little kid stepped out and I realized that these were actually the houses of workers who lived on the estancia. Whoops. South America. Poverty. Bad land-owner/worker relations. Got it.

Here's the secador. As you can see, it also employs a lot of corrugated steel in its construction. It's hot there.

The green stuff that guy is tramping over, that's the mate. The workers pitch it into this ditch with a conveying device at the bottom. It rides down the line and gets deposited in this spinning barrel that hurls it around and around a big fire in order to dry it.

Then it gets conveyed into another drying device and stored in burlap sacks until you want to drink it. It would tell you that its all good and sterile cause you boil it but, you can't boil the leaves! I guess those boots just add to the flavor.

Finally, after the estancia, we traveled and arrived at Puerto Iguazu, a sleepy little city outside of the park. This probably merited a longer visit on its own. Especially nice to wander around as the sun descends from its peak and all the tourists are at the park, but its still sweltering and dusty in that special south of the border way that every American imagines to exist.

Sadly, we were usually at the park during the peak season and at peak season, it looks like this:

Mucha gente.

The little orange thing in the distance is my guide's umbrella. We followed vaguely Disneyland style queues such as these to the mightiest fucking waterfall in all existence. La Garganta del Diablo. Or as I like to call it, my friends, the Throat of the Fucking Devil.

Lonely Planet quaintly describes it as "the experience of sailing off the edge of a flat earth imagined by early European sailors." 1,000,000 liters of water fall every second and something like half of that shoots back upward in the form of mist. Only a few meters below where they begin, the falls dance in and out of visibility as the mist waxes and wanes. The wind shifts and the cloud of vapor engulfs the puny man-things that wobble about on top of the catwalk, who yell for a reason I doubt they could explain.

My camera couldn't compete with this force of nature. I lacked the presence of mind and the dry bits of clothing to wipe off the lens. May my blurry and droplet-covered photos serve to enhance the indescribabilty of the falls:

Thankfully, we got to see the falls from the bottom and rim of the valley, so I was able to take some good pictures. I'll post those and call it day.

Oh, I almost forgot. I got up at 6:00 AM the next day to see the sunrise. Worth it:

News Flash!

2008-07-16T18:35:00.000-07:00

This is Nathan Lane, your funky-fresh maniacal-magical plane-hopping, jaw-dropping world-traveler extraordinaire servin' it to you fresh from the high-rises of Buenos Aires.

This just in from the scene, cats. The good people of this fair land have taken to the balconies, banging pots and pans to air some political sentiment, taken the fight to the roofs, if you will.

You heard me right. Argentina's cacerolazo has reared its ferrous head and breathed some fire into the political scene. In the midst of ongoing domestic agro-political crisis, an important vote was on the precipice of stalling when the people took up a fashionable tradition and stood on their balconies and banged pots and pans. The fence-sitting senator quickly decided voted in favor of the legislation.

The most famous of these cacerolazos ended in the resignation of the then-president, so take it seriously, friends.

I don't wanna give the impression that the country is in revolt around me, but there are gatherings in the streets and cars clogging the road, honking adding to the ruckus. Hell, my host mother was on the balcony, seated in a folding chair, making sure her vote was counted.

I bent her ear for a second to let her know that I love and admire the political sentiments in the country and lament the lack of such things in mine.

"Nobody takes care of the government in my country" I said "And I tell you, we are suffering the consequences."

Get your politic on.

Finally, brothers and sisters, I will bestow upon you my digital blessing in short time, photos of a land called Iguazú and the miracle of gravity occurring there.

Peace.

I Finally Understand Why My Grandad Insists on Eating Steak and Potatoes.

2008-07-09T16:17:00.000-07:00

Here are some pictures! Yay! From my trip to San Telmo! Yay!

San Telmo is a grungier (marginally) part of the city whose low rent attracts backpackers, foreigners and young people. It is most famous for the transvestites that inhabit its parks at night and its Sunday antique/whatever market. I got pictures of one of those things.

Most of the Market runs up and around this street called la Defensa. There are some portions where it is indoors. This is the most picturesque, says me.

The structure is way old, from the late 1700s, I think. Could be earlier. Formerly a residence, now a little market. There was a couple tango shops and some leather stores. One of which was selling a large orange and black number. Where they found the orange cow, I dunno.

It was raining that day, so all my photos will be plagued by ugly skies and blurs resulting from shutter-speeds that are too long. But you all demanded photos, therefore, I delivered.

Here is a blurry picture of shoes, for my sister, and others who are interested in such things.

I asked about shoes in my size. To his credit, when the guy heard my size, he didn't shout, whistle or do anything else that I've come to expect of shoe service people.

I actually get my satisfaction when they try to suppress the reaction. His eyebrows shot up, for just a a millisecond, and his mouth opened slightly. There may have been a slight rock to his body.

Apparently, in Argentine, I am a 47.

He said, though, there is a store in town where I can get such things, he gave me a tango magazine with an advertisement in it. More shoe adventures at a later date.

This is a picture of clothing.

It would have been even cooler looking if the day weren't so blah.

At any rate, all of the clothing there seemed indigenous/gaucho inspired and nothing that I would have ever worn in public.

Such as in the following picture.

As you can see, extremely furry. It is my opinion that clothing of this sort went out of style sometime in the late neolithic.

Of course, I know nothing about fashion, does anyone want an entire sheep coat? I'll go back and get you one.

I did see a pretty sweet store that sold these pinstriped purple pants. I am unsure if it was for males, though. I have that problem a lot here.

No picture of that though, my camera had died by that point.

Here are the antiques, or antee-cues as my dad would say. These look like junk, and they probably are, but other places sold some extremely expensive junk. I was after some lights and some pocket watches that were supposed to go for several thousand pesos.

Seeing how sweet looking some of these lighters from the 30's and 40's were makes me wonder if my granddad owns such a thing. Apparently, such things fetch a pretty penny, too.

Not pictured, but common, old colorful seltzer bottles. I have some pictures, but they're inexcusably bad. I'll be back there some sunnier day along with a camera with batteries.

Oh, ok, I'll do it anyway. Here.

Okay, so, I said something about a steak dinner. Here is the place that fed me gratuitously

I will take whoever comes to visit me to this place.

It happened like this:

I stomped around looking for this place with my lonely planet book. After much walking away from the center of the market, I found it.

I entered, took note of the totally acceptable decor and sat down. Someplace, my waiter confirmed that I was "solito" which is like solo, but with a diminutive suffix.

I looked over the menu, bewildered by a variety of non-steak options. I had the impression that a parrilla would have basically only steak. That is the wrong impression.

The waiter came back, asked if I was having trouble deciphering the menu. I told him that I was doing okay reading it, but I just wanted a mix of as many different types of steak as possible.

He asked me a few questions which I answered in ways that proved both my hungry and desire to try variety. This is the point where my waiter's personality emerged. He said to me "Dejalo en mis manos" leave it in my hands.

It was a good place to leave it. He passionately suggested to me the various options of beef and what he would select and why. He asked me if I wanted it prepared X which meant well done, or jugoso which literally means juicy. He upturned his hands and rubbed his thumbs to his fingertips in that distinctly foody/Italian way.

This guy's waiter-force crossed language and cultural barriers. Jessica would have enjoyed this. He had a smoky/rich baritone voice that comes straight from Argentine TV advertisements for chocolate.

He asked me what I wanted to drink he suggested vino. I said that I was not a big fan (I used the word aficionado, I think he took this to mean connoisseur) of wine but that I would like to try so Malbec, something for which Argentina is known. I asked him if it was possible to buy just a cup. Through a little extra communication, he expressed to me that it as not possible, but that he would do it anyway.

He then fetched an enormous glass, slightly smaller than my head. I assumed that this was one of those huge glasses that was filled only slightly in order to demonstrate their fanciness. I was mistaken. I think what actually happened is that I bought half a bottle of wine.

The meal began. A delicious and immense salad composed entirely of some delicious green leaf covered with a half-pound of cheese and a deluge of balsamic vinegar.

Then came the meat and potatoes. I didn't remember ordering potatoes. It didn't matter, they were delicious.

Ah, but this steak. It was truly exquisite. I cut a piece, quite tender, though not the spoon slice-able material I'd heard of. It's flavor is much lighter than any steak I've had in memory. Also, a quantity unheard of. Something like 4 steaks were on my plate.

Its was complemented with these two sauces on a separate plate. One, a mixture of cut onions and peppers a lot like mexican salsa without the spicy kick, the other a much finer mix of small grainy bits.

The wine? I tried all that wine-tasting fanciness with the swishing it about and breathing inward in order to excite the flavor. It was, as I began, totally drinkable and largely devoid of nasty alcohol taste. However, the little sips I was doing were not diminishing the quantity of libation in my goblet. By the end of the steak, I was still not near done and I noticed that the glass got wider as it went. It became rather a challenge to drink the stuff, which was a little more powerful than the grape juice rating I'd given it before.

Retrospectively, I may have been a sheet or two to the wind, remembering a certain way that the visual world seemed to lag behind my head as it turned. I remember being grateful of the Argentine habit of letting you sit for great lengths between course. I was in no hurry to move or eat more. I reiterate, it was a lot of wine.

I mopped up the remnants of the steak with the bread and the waiter returned joking "Oh you didn't like it" he then asked about dessert. Something in me said my said no, but my mouth said yes. Tiramisu with ice cream and strawberries. It too was gigantic. And contained another serving of alcohol? Poor me.

So there is my foody epic along with some pictures. You may commence to being envious now.

A Little Particpant Observation

2008-07-06T16:38:00.000-07:00

I should probably try and update my blog on a daily basis, cause much has happened since we last spoke.

Saturday

Hit up Museo de Belles Artes (Artes Belles) with my friend Aaron who is from New Zealand. Saw many works by my boy, the one, the only argument for French culture, Rodin.

I get emotional looking at Rodin. Hand of God is a work I saw. It's a disembodied hand holding a piece of rock that a lip-locked couple are emerging out of. Clearly, Rodin has been to a city park in Buenos Aires.

But seriously though, a the Hand of God holds what? People swirling about and making out as they are created from a piece of stone? That's pretty badass, Rodin, keep up the good work.

Also, a mega sweet temporary exhibit called Peppermint Candy from South Korea, or Corea del Sur. It was a collection of artists largely from Seoul being funky and fresh. It was all cleverly presented. Content-wise, it was mostly about the identity crisis of being Korean which apparently manifests itself as a lot of commentary on US-Korean relations.

Highlights: a series of picture of every family in a apartment building in each of their respective family rooms. Something about how people create identity/individuality in uniform spaces. Another was a video of a groundskeeper walking about inside a 20 dollar bill and white-washing (green washing, in this case) all the windows off of the white house.

Also took some sweet photos of a famous piece of public art here in Buenos Aires with my friend Aaron, will post those once I get them from him. I forget my camera for everything.

Had Buenos Aires famous Italian derived ice cream at a chain called Freddo. Chains here are apparently delicious. I had limon and something called Maracuy`a. As yet, don't know what that is. It was delicious.

Hurt my knee at the last capoeira event, and it turned out it was worse than I thought, so I was equivocating about whether or not I should go. I walked on it all day and that seemed to make it better, so I dashed (hobbled rapidly) home to get ready.

Cecilia hooked me up with yet another colectivo (bus) route. I now know how to use two in this city! Or so I thought.

I got there using my new procedure of desperately asking somebody to me help figure out when I should bajar (get off). I ended up getting off about two stops earlier than I probably wanted and wandered in what I hoped was the right direction, content in the idea that I was late as it was, what more could it matter.

Thus I was ambling, stealing glances at my handy little Guia T, the bolsillo (pocket version) bus map when, suddenly, I heard a distinctive twanging somewhere to my 5 o'clock. I spun around to see a guy standing in front of a small building painted the colors of the Brazilian flag, holding a berimbau. Just standing there, playing.

At the stroke of midnight, meet me under the lamp post where a man plays a berimbau

My feeling of belonging to a secret society amplified as I entered the warehouse-like building and saw a small circle of people in various states of transforming to capoeira clothing surrounding a muscular and apparently charismatic man. As a matter of fact, everyone seemed muscular and charismatic.

Berimbaus are very long and held at the waist, thus when held, they protrude far above people's heads, a bit like spears. This plus the generally combative and foreign appearance of everyone there, it was a little like the beginning to Dirty Dozen/Oceans Eleven type stealth/heist scene set in the neolithic.

I slid into the circle behind somebody I knew slightly and attempted to decode what was being said. I failed. What I later found out was that the "fighting" portion of the roda was canceled on account of the fact that floor was wet and instead they would sing and dance. But I didn't know that. All I knew was that all of a sudden, somebody kicked up the berimbaus and drums and everybody started singing. I did the only thing I could do. I clapped.

Other people filtered in the door and joined the circle. The capoeira greeting of sideways high five to fist pound was as good as a knock at the door.

Argentines seem big on greetings. If an Argentine shows up in a room with 20 people singing, dancing and playing instruments, he will of course take the time to go around the circle and kiss/capoeira-secret handshake everyone that he knows.

My teacher showed up and gave me a nod and thumbs up. I smiled, but did not falter in my clapping. Never falter in your clapping.

They sang and danced. They even sang the one capoeira song that I knew, so I could pretend I knew what I was doing. Paranah-ayy parana ahh na ah ah.

People crossed the circle only to hand off berimbau and drums. Somebody would catch somebody else's eye and the berimbau would bob across the circle into someone else's hands. Imagine a big electricity wire post uprooting itself and moving across the street, thats what its like to watch a funky-looking berimbau crossing the roda.

Tambourine drums called pandero's also were passed around. I abstained from both, not yet really knowing what I was doing. This pattern of events reminds me of the time I stumbled on some friends of mine smoking joints in an abandoned building, except a new kind of smelly.

Eventually, some people started to play in the center of the circle.

Most people played in their street clothes. It's disconcerting to watch somebody that looks like a common street suddenly start to move with such facility. Kids in tear-aways and skate shoes doing flying roundhouse kicks and back-flips. Meanwhile, I clapped.

Highlights: a little boy, about 6-8 yrs old enters the ring and starts executing all the same moves in miniature. In capoeira, you don't have to actually cause your opponent to fall for your ability to be recognized. Hence, when this kid weaved through his opponent's moves like a shuttle and lighted upon an unguarded ankle or open thigh, it still counted for something.

One guy played continuously as maybe dozen different capoeristas played him one after another. One would cause him to fall, only to be replaced by another who would do the same. This went on until the Mestre showed up and stopped everything, reminding them (I think) that the floor was too wet to play. It was, people had been slipping and sliding through out.

He set the atabaque player to a different beat with his berimbau, something that apparently took some doing. Then he stood in the middle of the circle and sang and played.

The guy that had fallen repeatedly and two others sat in the center as the Mestre pulled the circle around tight and started this gesture, bringing the palms of his hands down toward one of the people and sang. This was repeated three times.

I found out later that this was some kind of birthday thing. I didn't know this at the time. All I saw was a guy get his ass kicked, then him and some others were at the center of some sort of singing and ritualistic motion. What would you think?

Eventually, that came to an end and the Mestre sang and played berimbau in the center some more. A girl joined him and danced. Thus began the portion of the program that my dad would have liked best.

The samba de roda, as it turns out its called, is when instead of playing, pairs dance in the center. It's a rather weird shuffling step, but is quite effective in getting the hips in motion.

Observation: girl's butts look good in capoeira pants.

The dance is unrepentantly sexual. No contact, but hips going at the same time in an extremely specific motion. A new male or female (more often a male) replaces their counterpart and the gyration continues, meanwhile everyone looks on. Small wonder Freud is popular here.

This went on for an eternity, people sliding in and out of the roda, dancing. I clapped the beat faithfully, having no ever-loving idea what was going on. After a lot of that, it came to end.

At this point, I had probably done nothing but clap and bob my hands up and down for a straight two hours. I'm making it a point to learn how these songs go and to learn how to play these instruments.

That was largely it. The people filtered out. The metal sliding door had been closed and people hunched out the square exit cut into it. I stayed and chatted for awhile, then found my bus, took it in the wrong direction and circled around the route chatting up the friendly collectivero and attractive, Japanese-speaking seat mate.

I came home, found no Jos`e and crashed.

Sunday:
Today I visited a sweet market in San Telmo and ate a glorious glorious meal at a parrilla, an Argentine steakhouse. I will put up pictures and revisit this theme after some of you casually scan the enormous quantity of text above and leave a comment advising me to be more concise.

I Suceed Again, No Humiliation to Report. Sorry.

2008-07-04T19:19:00.001-07:00

Happy Fourth of July, World!

This has been a hell of a day.

First, all the idiots in my Spanish class skipped today to celebrate America, therefore my Spanish class was way better than usual. (It's amazing how missing 5 hours of botched pronunciation can improve your mood).

Then after Spanish class, I had my weekly meeting with Paula, my Spanish tutor/cultural adviser, who assured me that, yes, ISA students do make friends with Argentines, though it takes some fuerza and voluntud (force and will). This is contrary to the opinion of my host mother, who has observed that exchange students primarily make friends with other exchange students.

Paula assured me that pursuing things like Capoeira classes and jam sessions are the things that will net me friends.

Paula also explained to me that its the norm for female people to avoid eye contact with the menfolk while walking on the streets. That had really been digging into my self-confidence. Walking down the streets, I was beginning to feel like I was invisible, ugly or a rapist. Or an exciting combination.

Speaking of Capoeira, today was my first friday class and therefore the end of my first full week of doing capoeira. Holy god! That thing is amazing. From 6 to 10 today, I sang in Portuguese, spoke in portu-spanish, attempted some death defying maneuvers, played the old (circa 1700-1800) style Capoeira game and did pretty well, apparently.

And then afterward, glory of glories, I got to hang out a little bit with some people from my class and they walked home with me. Speaking in Spanish, por fin! They were even female! I somehow, between my infinite good looks and precocious technical display of Capoeira skill, managed to overcome years of cultural conditioning, and speak with an Argentine female. I didn't even have to start the conversation. Whoa.

And then after that, dinner, some sort of vegetable pie situation. Not bad. And following that, a brief conversation with Nair about how Paula advised me to go to bars to meet people and my ignorance/antipathy concerning alcohol. She then consulted Jose, my host brother about where I ought to go, and he invited me to go see his band play at a bar. Then after that, he will take me along with his friends to a boliche, which is Argentine for dance club. In typical Buenos Aires fashion, Jose's band doesn't start playing until 1 AM. In short. I will need sunglasses.

Some of you, gentle readers, may notice that these activities don't rank high on my list of things I like to do. For those of you who aren't savvy let me point out all the parts of this itinerary that I could potentially dislike: Rock 'n Roll, Bars, Dance Clubs, Not Sleeping. That pretty much covers it. But never let it be said that I don't try anything new. It'll be an experience of some kind.

And then after that, I went to find this jam session that I heard about the weekend previous in another jazz club. Being me, I lost the napkin where the address was written right before I left, and so only knew it was on either 1630 or 1680, Pedraza Manuela.

Well, 1680 didn't exist and 1630 was a door surrounded by colorful graffiti and marked only be a sign that read We Gift Kittens*. I considered giving up, but I heard a saxophone coming out of the air conditioning unit, so I mustered my courage and rang the doorbell to discover...

Bohemia.

The thought I had as a long-haired girl in oddly fitting clothing asked me for a 10 peso cover charge was "This was the place that Janis Joplin would have gone to hear jazz jam sessions. Indeed, that might just have been here taking my money."

It was an apartment turned venue. Where it was light enough you could see the walls, they were painted orange and red in a style that could affectionately be referred to as DIY. The "bar" was actually the kitchen counter. Some thoughtful soul had nail-gunned some wine glass racks on the ceiling above it. People were lounged on the floor, on beat-up couches, on chairs ripped from cars surrounding low, rough, wooden tables that were covered in candles, wine glasses and splinters.

The "stage," inches away, was illuminated by colored lighting put up by the same contractor that made the tables and put up the glass racks. It appeared to be a collection of those carpeted boxes that my band teacher stood on to conduct in high school. The wall behind the drummer was covered by a mysterious and lumpy red rectangle, which I surmised to be mattresses pressed into noise-reduction duty. Behind the stage was a large white sheet with a women's face painted on it. What does it all mean?

The music attempted to live up to the authentic bohemian decor and maybe it succeeded. I have no way of knowing if your average jam session in a rat hole in the early 60's had players as weak of these. I assume so. They tried to be weird and they succeeded.

But it fills me with hope, because it means I can go there and play and not be much worse than anybody else. The people there were all pleasantly drug anyway and didn't seem too focused on the music.

I did meet some people, and spoke to them in Spanish. Hooray! I met a pair of chicas that are, get this, a Foley artist team. Apparently, one records and the other actually makes the sounds. This strikes me as one of the most random professions I've heard of, but a great one. They assured me that it was lots of fun. They work mostly for movie studios looking to do sound on the cheap in Argentina.

So, bohemian place, bohemian couch-mates, bohemian music. Tomorrow more Capoeira and a long night. Wish me luck

*Denotes something that has been literally translated for maximum comedic effect. Discontinue use if rash appears.

How I Was Funny Yesterday

2008-07-01T19:51:00.000-07:00

A while since an update, how bout news of a success?

Monday I went to go be at the capoiera thing.

That was pretty cool. I got there early, nobody there, I waited around some students apparated, no Mario, the teacher. I eventually got the gumption to go be with the students. As soon as I showed up, they began warm-ups and I joined them.

It's hilarious how much taller than everyone I am. We did partner stretches and the poor bastard trying to stretch my legs had to raise it above his head and stand on his tip-toes.

I got a wrist brace at the local Farmacity to protect myself, I hope that works.

When Mario came in, he smiled and gave me a thumbs up. He seemed surprised that I showed up. He later explained to the class the nature of our chance meeting in the street and said that I search for capoeira and that means I got a buen actitud.

Mario knows who mestre azulao is and--

OH! I forgot to mention. First joke! Primer chiste made. It was a defensive maneuver made on the fly. Some improvisational wit to defend myself.

Mario was trying to speak to me in English and I told him I prefer Spanish, but he said that he was learning English and I said I was learning Spanish (already a pretty good foreign language exchange, if I may say so) and he said that I would have difficulty understanding him cause really he spoke Portuguese and his Spanish was lousy. I responded that I spoke with Mestre azulao and he only speaks Portuguese and he asked me if I spoke Portuguese. I replied, lamely, no.

But here my wit came to the rescue, bursting through this fog of verbal inadequacy to deliver a knockout blow that would end this point decisively in my favor. I said that it works because my spanish is so bad, its like one from brazil.

Baddabing, badda boom. Baby.

I think I was just being paranoid about the food thing. I talked to the ISA office, they said that I ought to make sure to communicate my food desires to my host lady and that seems like a good idea. Today was lentils,potatoes and meat in some stew configuration. A little lacking in the taste department, but apparently healthy.

Friday I will go to a jam session not far from here. I hope. I think my host lady might have thrown out the address in the process of cleaning my room today. This would crush my heart.

Pictures of the Recoleta. I arrived there to find that my memory card was sitting contentedly in my computer. I took precious few with the space on my camera itself, but don't know how to move it to my computer. This marks the second failed attempt to go to the Recoleta properly.

I did however, buy a belt in the market just outside. Here is picture of that:

It's alot like the Recoleta except for the fact that its not. Also pictured is my bed in which I literally cannot fit because there are walls on both ends and my feet are therefore unable to comfortably hang off the edge. Worse yet, the heater is at one end of my bed, so if I put my feet flat against the wall, they get singed. Ironic considering the room is otherwise quite cold.

And finally, concerning Bill's exhortation to kill. Apparently, Buenos Aires has the highest rate of psychologists per capita in the world. (It also has the highest rate of eating disorders. And plastic surgery. Chicken-egg?) I confirmed their Freuditud with my spanish teacher today, and she hastened to mention that people go to psicòlogos very casually here. Furthermore, she stated her support for Freudian psychology as an opposition to pill-popping psychology, there apparently being no middle ground.

Therefore, I conclude the following: I'm actually in a city-sized Freudian indoctrination facility. The situation is much worse than we could have known. The dark times are upon us.

Recoleta, Embarrassment, Loomings.

2008-06-29T19:17:00.000-07:00

Today I have visited the beautiful and mysterious Recoleta, Buenos Aire's famous necropolis. Imagine if you will the great population density of Buenos Aires herself, the crowded, narrow streets with buildings that quickly run into each other and grow upward instead. Now change that so its a population density of dead people and that they require even less personal space than a porteño and you can begin to imagine what I mean when I say this place is wall to wall dead people.

Two and three-story tombs and mausoleums made of luxurious stone throw up ornate crosses and angels into the sky, wedged together like necrotic tv antennae. You'd think at some point somebody would have realized that their tomb would stand out more if it were not an imposing 16-foot tall black marble monstrosity, but no, brute ostentation carries the day.

The press of religious imagery backdropped by Buenos Aire's frequently cloudy sky gives a horror movie-set feel to the place. This feeling is intensified by the cats that pose photogenically in rays of light that break through the triple-layered crosses and overcast.

The buried seemed pretty convinced that they were going to be resurrected. Stairways into the crypts have hand rails and the marble covers are on rails so they can be moved with minimal effort.

Alot of door have shiny new padlocks on them. This is because La Recoleta is still in use. People gettin' buried there all the time. But it makes the place spookier... somehow.

Yesterday, seeking spanish conversation, I went to find a Milonga (a social tango dance). I headed for one reputed to have good classes, arrived about an hour too late and was informed that there would be no milonga tonight, only a show.

There's this thing that happens when you speak to me in a language that it not English. I have this desperate desire to complete our interaction quickly so I can make up for the time I spent fumbling for a word. This comes at the expense of my brain-thinking time. Therefore, I bought a ticket for this show about which I barely asked.

I was directed to talk to the chico to my left about seating. And he informed me that there was no space at the tables but I could come back at 10 to see if anybody hadn't show up. Or, sit at the bar. I, having no idea what time it was or what time the show started and being too stupefied by this entire "speaking and listening to spanish" thing, was too dumb to pull out my phone and check. The fastest option, pursuant to my unfortunate rule, was to agree to sit at the bar.

So, there I was. By myself, waiting for a show of an unknown length, time and content seated, of all places, at a bar. I did the only thing I could do. I ordered a fresh-squeezed orange juice.

They were out. Faced with the option of drinking nasty water con gaso, or being American and forcing a glass of tap water onto the table or drinking alcohol, I ordered a Warsteiner, something I'd read was "smooth" which I hoped meant drinkable. I also ordered a sirloin steak. I enjoyed one of them.

The good news is, the food and show were great. It turned out to be a tango singer backed by guitars. And judging by the reactions of the audience, she was quite hilarious.

I also struck up a conversation with the girl seated to my left, a 21 year-old psych student, who informed me that Argentinian psychologists are really into Freud.

And finally the loomings. My host mother and I have a weird relationship. Specifically, she doesn't speak to me very often and she cooks lousy food while I'm pretty sure she and her son are eating better. I'm looking into this.

The lady in the apartment above is running around in her high heels, so that means its time for me to go to bed. Gnight!

Nathan

First Post!

2008-06-28T13:37:00.000-07:00

Hey Kiddies!

I´m making good on my promise to blog on my experience here in Argentina. And this is where its going to be at, so bookmark, remember scribble on that stack of infrequently used stick notes underneath the monitor (Dad) and be entertained.

So I´ve done a week here already. Whoa. I would say that time has flown, but it really hasn´t. It´s been a pretty long seeming week, full of fun and failure of the most publicly embarrassing kind.

There´s been a lot going on, so I´ll save myself the work and just randomly assemble some sort of vignettey sort of list of things that I´ve seen/experienced.

I had all my skepticism about the actual sensuality of tango be blasted away when I saw a pair of dancers at a street market. Though it defies all rational process, it turns out that having a women in very slitty dress run her heel clad foot up your shin is the most sexual motion in the history of dance.

I have been briefly to the Recoleta, Buenos Aire´s famous and beautiful graveyard-city. It turned out to be closing just about as soon as I arrived, but I return tomorrow, so I should have some pictures and some hyperbole about what it was like.

I went on run today to go find the Rio de Plata, the world´s widest river. While that was a pretty cool sight in itself, a great foggy expanse of water with no perceptible end, it kind of paled in comparison to one of its riverside attractions, Tierra Santa.

Tierra Santa is, as I deciphered from the fancy Charleston Heston stone tablet doodad outside, is the world´s first religious theme park! From the outside, I could see a large fake mound with large probably fake crucified Jesus and two thieves atop it. There also appeared to be some Roman Centurions outside, keeping the peace and tearing tickets. I will report on this wonderful expression of Latin American religiosity as soon as I stop laughing long enough to buy a ticket.

Last night I embarked on a journey to navigate the subte (subway) system here and find the much lauded Club Thelonious (pronounced Cloob Tay-lohn-ee-ooss) hip jazz bar in a swanky neighborhood. I, after an arduous search, found the city´s Italian heritage in the form of music and some seriously serious making out I witnessed taking place on the couches.

Speaking of public transit, I have successfully bungled my way through the city´s system of buses. That #### is hard. Anyone coming to BA (as the hip guidebooks refer to it) should definitely see if they can acquire lots of change in advance, as a weird twist of economy and public transit has made coins rather scarce here and nobody likes to part with them.

Anyway, maybe next post will have some general observations about Buenos Aires or what I´ve done lately, its all pretty exciting.

And yes mom, I do have a cell phone.

Nathan