The only extreme weather conditions these houses are built for is extreme hot. When the hail started we were at first amused by the heavy tapping on the openable plastic roof slats. We ran out into the street and rejoiced, until golfball sized lumps of ice almost concussed someone. We cowered inside. The plastic roof slats groaned and creaked. All of a sudden, like the moment in the horror film when the house's defenses are breached, I saw a huge lump of ice drop straight through the roof and crack against the stone floor of the patio. This was the catalyst. Huge gaps started yawning. Several holes opened. Itay and I took an executive decision - OPEN THE SLATS!
We turned frantically on the long metal poles, and a thick rain of ice clouded vision. All furniture was shifted out of the patio, and we stood at the doorway, watching the huge lumps of ice cloud the floor. Out in the front, two car windscreens had been smashed. Everyone was crowded in doorways, laughing and looking on in amazement.
Afterwards the street was a chaos. The branches and buds from the trees carpeted the pavement. Water overflowed pipes into the road. And everywhere, windows were smashed - house windows, flat windows, car windscreens. One car had 4 huge holes punched in its back window. I interrogated old people. One man said it sometimes happens in San Luis. An old woman said Mendoza. Another old woman who had just slipped over told me she'd been in the city 50 years and never seen anything like it.
Itay was elated. 'I love extreme weather conditions.'
I was temerous. I had honestly thought it was the end of the world.
Monday, August 07, 2006
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Pasan el tiempo y la lluvia - fugaz fugaz la vida
Well it's been a while. And now I am writing on a computer without a comma - so I have to use many hyphens or just keep going going going in an endless dribble (no change there I suppose).
Got to catch you up with the events of the recent past, drop by saccharine drop.
LA FAMA DE MARINEROS
Just hitchhoke 12 hours and 1000 kms from El Calafate in the South of Argentina to Comodoro Rivadavia also in the South because the country is so enormous. Hutchhiggled with a truck driver called Fernando who would've been 28 yesterday if he hadn't forgotten his own birthday and who has been driving trucks since he was not joking 12 YEARS OLD but might well now change his job - significant in the context of 3 generations driving trucks in his family which began with his grandfather in the 20's (the truckdriving not the family) - because his wife chucked him out the house a few weeks ago on account of being tired that F is never at home and the general reputation of truckdrivers - family in every town that is (la fama de marineros he put it) which he admitted was partly true though he loves his wife and 3 little kids and her throwing him out was perhaps a conscious gambit to make him see things more clearly i.e. what is important because she called him 3 days ago inviting him back and now he understands how much she has suffered in the 10 years they have been together and the last while apart has been tough for him losing the desire to eat the ability to sleep and the compulsion to smoke (cold turkey from 5 packs a day) consequently when he picked me up on the outskirts of El Calafate and I tearfully said goodbye to my trusty and temporary dog Maya Fernando had been driving for 3 days without sleeping though seemed pretty compus though at times he went serious downtime like I think fish when they sleep but don't sleep just sort of drift all this he told me throughout a 12 hour journey through the IMMEASURABLE FLAT EMPTINESS of Patagonia from broad sunny day to bloodbath sunset to star stapled night a 12 hour journey consisting of 2 hours guitar playing 20 mins composing a hate letter to Blunt about his You're Beautiful song 4 hours sleeping 2 hours staring in silence 30 minutes translating a Metallica song into Spanish for F and the rest chatting about all the above and much much more and when he deposited me on a dusty layby (Labi?) opposite a service station in Comodoro Rivadavia I stood and shivered and felt moved by this peep through a glassy night into someone's life as Fernando roared off at last back to his wife and family.
SEÑOR SUBJUNCTIVO MEETS TARZAN
Someone today thought I was Spanish AFTER hearing me speak - a major achievement.
This notwithstanding the fact that 3 people have accused me of speaking Tarzan Spanish. After all the work I put into using the subjunctive!
People raised by monkeys and the English cannot normally comprehend the subjunctive mood. I've decided to start using it in English by altering my volume:
It's not possible that Hitler LIKED marmalade.
He's moving the wheelbarrow so that you DON'T HURT yourself when you climax.
In GRAMMAR: THE MOVIE Señor Subjunctivo is a translucent figure - the bastard son of Mother Tongue - forever twisted and gibbering in the shadow of his half-brother Juandicativo.
HATE LETTER TO BLUNT
Dear Mr. Blunt
You might be happy to know that I have heard your song played repeatedly in some of the most isolated parts of the world. But you shouldn't be. Actually you should be ashamed and embarrassed because the song represents an insult to the human brain and irrefutable proof of your hateful and aberrant taste.
Just because you saw a girl in a bar who you wanted to fuck and couldn't doesn't mean you have to whine about it in appalling clichés.
If I were you I would be unable to show my face in public. The enormous success of the song worldwide gives me less faith in humanity than the creation and proliferation of atomic weapons.
I can only pray that the song was a deliberate cold-hearted bid for fame and money and that you do not believe it has any artistic merit.
Get fucked
Prawn D. Subsidio esq.
THE SEA AT NIGHT JUST DEFINED
We swung round the bed and I noticed a strange quivering greyness by the side of the road. I peered to discern what it was and my heart gaped a split of horror. The sea lay there, threatening me with its enormity. I felt chastened and shakened. It had been a glimpse into the cold animal fear of Infinity, which is the most human of creations.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DANCE THE BAMBA
A bit of style;
Another little thing.
(Up up)
ICY SPIDERS
Hatchhawking the 120 kms from El Bolson to Bariloche should have been easy.
Walked hours with backpack and Carlos the Valencian with one of those funny Spanishy lisps to the service station at the exit of the town.
Many truck drivers said no.
Eventually a toothless farmer travelling with toothless wife, toothless daughter and toothless baby motioned us up on top of the cab.
We put our stuff in the back with sheep sand and climbed up 4m high on top of the truck.
Exhilerating - the icy wind froze our bones but the snow covered mountains were alive and gloriously present.
Stopped - we're here. 75kms not Bariloche. The Toothless family had arrived at their destination which happened to be in the middle of nowhere.
Cursing hoisted bags and walked, folorn thumbs out to one passing car every 10 minutes.
A 4x4 with an open back screeched to a halt and we delighted climbed aboard. Drank máte, ate biscuits.
He screamed off round the mountains bends covered with treacherous ice.
The police stopped him and told him to slow down. He slammed his foot down.
Fear started like a pissy trickle: the bends were bendy and the ice was icy. Serious drop to our left.
Wheels locked. Car spinning 360 degrees all over the road. The tops of trees over the drop approaching, metal barrier flimsy.
He wrestled the car to a halt in the silence. We are touching the barrier side on.
I hadn't spilt the máte. The gentleman was bloodless. We continued to the lakes.
Got to catch you up with the events of the recent past, drop by saccharine drop.
LA FAMA DE MARINEROS
Just hitchhoke 12 hours and 1000 kms from El Calafate in the South of Argentina to Comodoro Rivadavia also in the South because the country is so enormous. Hutchhiggled with a truck driver called Fernando who would've been 28 yesterday if he hadn't forgotten his own birthday and who has been driving trucks since he was not joking 12 YEARS OLD but might well now change his job - significant in the context of 3 generations driving trucks in his family which began with his grandfather in the 20's (the truckdriving not the family) - because his wife chucked him out the house a few weeks ago on account of being tired that F is never at home and the general reputation of truckdrivers - family in every town that is (la fama de marineros he put it) which he admitted was partly true though he loves his wife and 3 little kids and her throwing him out was perhaps a conscious gambit to make him see things more clearly i.e. what is important because she called him 3 days ago inviting him back and now he understands how much she has suffered in the 10 years they have been together and the last while apart has been tough for him losing the desire to eat the ability to sleep and the compulsion to smoke (cold turkey from 5 packs a day) consequently when he picked me up on the outskirts of El Calafate and I tearfully said goodbye to my trusty and temporary dog Maya Fernando had been driving for 3 days without sleeping though seemed pretty compus though at times he went serious downtime like I think fish when they sleep but don't sleep just sort of drift all this he told me throughout a 12 hour journey through the IMMEASURABLE FLAT EMPTINESS of Patagonia from broad sunny day to bloodbath sunset to star stapled night a 12 hour journey consisting of 2 hours guitar playing 20 mins composing a hate letter to Blunt about his You're Beautiful song 4 hours sleeping 2 hours staring in silence 30 minutes translating a Metallica song into Spanish for F and the rest chatting about all the above and much much more and when he deposited me on a dusty layby (Labi?) opposite a service station in Comodoro Rivadavia I stood and shivered and felt moved by this peep through a glassy night into someone's life as Fernando roared off at last back to his wife and family.
SEÑOR SUBJUNCTIVO MEETS TARZAN
Someone today thought I was Spanish AFTER hearing me speak - a major achievement.
This notwithstanding the fact that 3 people have accused me of speaking Tarzan Spanish. After all the work I put into using the subjunctive!
People raised by monkeys and the English cannot normally comprehend the subjunctive mood. I've decided to start using it in English by altering my volume:
It's not possible that Hitler LIKED marmalade.
He's moving the wheelbarrow so that you DON'T HURT yourself when you climax.
In GRAMMAR: THE MOVIE Señor Subjunctivo is a translucent figure - the bastard son of Mother Tongue - forever twisted and gibbering in the shadow of his half-brother Juandicativo.
HATE LETTER TO BLUNT
Dear Mr. Blunt
You might be happy to know that I have heard your song played repeatedly in some of the most isolated parts of the world. But you shouldn't be. Actually you should be ashamed and embarrassed because the song represents an insult to the human brain and irrefutable proof of your hateful and aberrant taste.
Just because you saw a girl in a bar who you wanted to fuck and couldn't doesn't mean you have to whine about it in appalling clichés.
If I were you I would be unable to show my face in public. The enormous success of the song worldwide gives me less faith in humanity than the creation and proliferation of atomic weapons.
I can only pray that the song was a deliberate cold-hearted bid for fame and money and that you do not believe it has any artistic merit.
Get fucked
Prawn D. Subsidio esq.
THE SEA AT NIGHT JUST DEFINED
We swung round the bed and I noticed a strange quivering greyness by the side of the road. I peered to discern what it was and my heart gaped a split of horror. The sea lay there, threatening me with its enormity. I felt chastened and shakened. It had been a glimpse into the cold animal fear of Infinity, which is the most human of creations.
WHAT YOU NEED TO DANCE THE BAMBA
A bit of style;
Another little thing.
(Up up)
ICY SPIDERS
Hatchhawking the 120 kms from El Bolson to Bariloche should have been easy.
Walked hours with backpack and Carlos the Valencian with one of those funny Spanishy lisps to the service station at the exit of the town.
Many truck drivers said no.
Eventually a toothless farmer travelling with toothless wife, toothless daughter and toothless baby motioned us up on top of the cab.
We put our stuff in the back with sheep sand and climbed up 4m high on top of the truck.
Exhilerating - the icy wind froze our bones but the snow covered mountains were alive and gloriously present.
Stopped - we're here. 75kms not Bariloche. The Toothless family had arrived at their destination which happened to be in the middle of nowhere.
Cursing hoisted bags and walked, folorn thumbs out to one passing car every 10 minutes.
A 4x4 with an open back screeched to a halt and we delighted climbed aboard. Drank máte, ate biscuits.
He screamed off round the mountains bends covered with treacherous ice.
The police stopped him and told him to slow down. He slammed his foot down.
Fear started like a pissy trickle: the bends were bendy and the ice was icy. Serious drop to our left.
Wheels locked. Car spinning 360 degrees all over the road. The tops of trees over the drop approaching, metal barrier flimsy.
He wrestled the car to a halt in the silence. We are touching the barrier side on.
I hadn't spilt the máte. The gentleman was bloodless. We continued to the lakes.
Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Lunatic Schemes and English Dreams
WHAT IS TO COME?
Itay is now in Buenos Aires and we are full throttle looking for cash, Holocaust survivors and a German translator for a lunatic mission to the end of the Earth. We have CECILIA, Argentine filmmaker and possibly a top English sound technician who shall not be named until he fully plants his steiner of ale down on the project table. I cannot give you all the details now - I don't want to spoil it! I've told the fishermen not to say anything either.
Madcap project number one - What is to Come - has caused me to split my blog efforts. See the dedicated project blog at www.getjealous.com/whatistocome.
TWO MUSIC REVIEWS 1: FRANZ FERDINAND
'Too British' said Diego, 26 when I asked him if he had enjoyed the concert. What does that mean? 'Too perfect,' he replied. 'There was nothing missing, and I like things missing.'
We were outside the Luna Park in the aftermath of Franz Ferdinand's preliminary assault on Buenos Aires. Of course the real show for them would be supporting the mighty U2 in front of 100,000+ at the River Plate Stadium, but here was a chance to see the Archdukes of British pop-rock in a more intimate setting.
And the Luna Park, opened in 1934 as a boxing ring and thereafter scene of many a high profile gig, not least the final episode of Maradona's TV series, is just that. It's like a warm, friendly barn. But perhaps that was just the vibe of the crowd. Profile: vast majority in their 20s with a smattering of kids, older yuppies and the occasional old rocker; pockets of goths seasoned with a punk or two; a strong gay contingent and a healthy dash of extranjeros. Before the show people milled around chatting and smoking in a cocktail party atmosphere.
The band exploded onto the stage at 10 o'clock, a stylish and wonderful sight in front of a Lichtensteinesque pop art banner showing a woman, hand to mouth, calling out 'FRANZ FERDINAND' in a roomy speech bubble. The four, plus extras, were impeccably dressed, and each brought a very definite personality to the stage.
Alex Kapronos, lead singer and rhythm guitar, clad in tight red shirt and black velvet trousers with red pinstripes, appears a combination of David Bowie and a young Michael Caine. Straight-backed, tall and blond, he stalked around the stage imperiously. Nicholas McCarthy (lead guitar and piano) had a muppet-like zeal about him, while bassist Bob Hardy was like a fuzzy blond bear, a tranquil counterpoint to the frenetic energy of the other two. Drummer Paul Thompson was a Beatlesy mop of hair at the back bouncing around.
Also bouncing around were the crowd. In Britain serious 'moshing' is reserved for heavy metal concerts, but crashing around in a churning mass of headbangers holding up fists with first and fourth fingers extended in the Universal Rock Sign Language for 'Awesome', I realised that Argentina is truly a nation of rockers.
Kapronos tried 'Muchas Gracias' and 'Que Tal' and then resorted to English barely discernable even to the English speakers in the crowd. He introduced the band one by one halfway through over a thrumming groove, repeatedly bellowing 'Do – you – want – to – know – his – NAME?' until even the more reserved spectators were yelling 'YES! YES!' with childish glee.
When the inevitable global smash hit 'Take Me Out' was played on the hour mark, the backdrop changed to 4 stately pointillist portraits like Warhol in monochrome. The band really stepped up a gear. Warming up the crowd with an expert touch, they dipped their heads and guitars frequently into the ocean of grasping hands.
Franz Ferdinand are more a band of the groove than the virtuosic solo. At times they cut to one musician following the riff, to be joined one by one by the other band members until the whole unit thumped it out together. If there is one criticism it is that the sound was overloaded, so much so that at times the song was lost in distortion. But this might have been the effect they were going for, being a band of body music rather than head.
They played for a solid hour and a half with a ten minute break. The finale was a breathtaking odyssey of peaks and troughs. At one point no fewer than three people were drumming at the same kit, electrified by strobe lighting, while Kapronos and McCarthy raced around the stage holding their guitars aloft and standing up above the people urging them on. When they finally wound up the last number, the crowd were left panting while the band members performed a neat bow together. Visually arresting, entertaining, stylish and with body to boot. Too British perhaps, but can you really have too much of a good thing?
SUBTE
The BA subway-metro-tube is called the Subte and is a bustling marketplace of blind people selling marker pens and demonstrating their use on a cd, little girls selling stickers that they place on every passenger's lap before coming back round to deal with any buyers, folklorica musicians from Salta playing tiny banjos and panpipes, at least one fantastic sax and piano (full size, don't ask me how) duo, beggars, wisecrackers, lone men selling Computer magazines, biographies of the Argentine Presidents, pharmaceuticals, glasses cases, marker pens, newspapers, cakes and biscuits, marker pens, keyrings pocket torches penknives batteries plug adaptors sweets chocolate school textbooks stickers with voices worn out through years of hawking to a stripped wooden gurgle that scrapes through the endless babbling mash of commuters.
TWO MUSIC REVIEWS 2: MEDESKI MARTIN AND WOOD
Groove Clawing, Pipe Squeaking and Tube Blowing – Jazz at its Freshest
The NY Jazz Trio stormed the Teatro Gran Rex for the Buenos Aires jazz festival showing us vibrant professionalism at its peak.
No-one was expecting this at a jazz gig. Ten minutes after the New York trio had finished their encore the floor lights were up in the Gran Rex but the capacity crowd had refused to disperse. They were very much still there, and producing an insane ruckus. Rhythmic clapping, whooping and the traditional Argentine crowd tune that is chanted in such situations and which can be roughly translated as 'Give us more! Give us more! Give us more!'.
How could they refuse? Medeski, Martin and Wood, contemporary jazz legends, came back on stage blinking in sincere surprise at the feral appreciation of the crowd. They took up their positions and started funking a flagship number when something truly extraordinary happened. Chris Wood, tall angular bassist, disconnected his double bass from its moorings and planted it on the lip of the stage plucking mikeless with his hands clawing a groove. Band leader Billy Martin was next, emerging from his fortress of a kit with his hand shoved up a bizarre percussive pipe that produced a variety of farmyard squeaking noises. Finally John Medeski appeared from behind his banks of keys with a handheld melodica keyboard that he powered through a long rubber tube curling into his mouth like a Arabian hookah pipe.
The crowd were trendily dressed and largely bearded and male. Jazz. The only beard on stage was of scraggly haired Billy Martin, who had managed barely more than 'Muchas Gracias' into the mike but sang in español for a Cuban salsa number, which was the first time Medeski played the baby grand piano at the back of the set. The mix was rich and full, coming principally from the range of keys that were occasionally used with a plucking jazz guitar sound. MMW did their lunatic versions of the mainstay styles and rhythms, touring through an organ drawl trip waltz that homaged Kind of Blue, Ray Charles-esque rhythm and blues, shuffling backbeats, breakbeat electronica and even a soft jazz version of Hendrix's Hey Joe, but each track held its atmospheric aesthetic intact, and their personality came through in their versatility. The show stopper was Chris Wood, who provided a more intense groove on electric but always impressed more with his acrobatics on the upright bass.
Having played for two hours in their respective zones of their stage, the unforeseen finale saw them in a row at the front of the stage, bobbing in unison. They played a cheery blues that with the thick bass, the squeaky whooping of the pipe and the tinny melodica sounded so fresh and divine that one would have liked to throw up two spoons, a cat and a toy car to see what they could come up with. This last feat felt like something they had improvised as a special treat for a particularly deserving audience, and the audience stood or sat, heads bobbing, mouths open at the compulsive synchrony of three musicians at the peak who are tight as they could be after fifteen years, without having lost any of the electricity that has deservedly made them into contemporary legends. It was breathtaking. The crowd were overawed, with those who could not contain their whooping (I confess) shushed angrily by those who puritanically wanted to hear every note. The roaring continued after the trio had left the stage, but when they came back on to bow a final farewell, everyone knew that they couldn't ask for one drop more.
(published in the Buenos Aires Herald)
DECISIONS
I have decided to miss the one year deadline to claim my return flight to London. This is not purely out of dedication to the travel blog. It is born out of a selection of good opportunities, madcap schemes, a raw animal fear of returning to the murky whirlpool of London, a wish to claim the irreality of 'travelling' as a species of real life.
I know that to all of you at home it must seem like I'm having such a good time that I am never going to come back. This is partly true - I am stimulated, growing stronger in my selected areas, freer perhaps, but- this does not change the fact that I love you and miss you all, family and friends. Painfully sometimes. Come and visit me. US$500 from Spain.
I also miss London, green and merrie Englande, seen now through soft focus. At times I feel like an alcoholic Catholic priest dying of malaria in one of Graham Greene's colonial outposts. And the roses just aren't the same. Here they are wild scraggly things, like dogs in a desert. Skin and bone. I deliriously recall the fat buttery things weighing down bushes in an English garden.
Itay is now in Buenos Aires and we are full throttle looking for cash, Holocaust survivors and a German translator for a lunatic mission to the end of the Earth. We have CECILIA, Argentine filmmaker and possibly a top English sound technician who shall not be named until he fully plants his steiner of ale down on the project table. I cannot give you all the details now - I don't want to spoil it! I've told the fishermen not to say anything either.
Madcap project number one - What is to Come - has caused me to split my blog efforts. See the dedicated project blog at www.getjealous.com/whatistocome.
TWO MUSIC REVIEWS 1: FRANZ FERDINAND
'Too British' said Diego, 26 when I asked him if he had enjoyed the concert. What does that mean? 'Too perfect,' he replied. 'There was nothing missing, and I like things missing.'
We were outside the Luna Park in the aftermath of Franz Ferdinand's preliminary assault on Buenos Aires. Of course the real show for them would be supporting the mighty U2 in front of 100,000+ at the River Plate Stadium, but here was a chance to see the Archdukes of British pop-rock in a more intimate setting.
And the Luna Park, opened in 1934 as a boxing ring and thereafter scene of many a high profile gig, not least the final episode of Maradona's TV series, is just that. It's like a warm, friendly barn. But perhaps that was just the vibe of the crowd. Profile: vast majority in their 20s with a smattering of kids, older yuppies and the occasional old rocker; pockets of goths seasoned with a punk or two; a strong gay contingent and a healthy dash of extranjeros. Before the show people milled around chatting and smoking in a cocktail party atmosphere.
The band exploded onto the stage at 10 o'clock, a stylish and wonderful sight in front of a Lichtensteinesque pop art banner showing a woman, hand to mouth, calling out 'FRANZ FERDINAND' in a roomy speech bubble. The four, plus extras, were impeccably dressed, and each brought a very definite personality to the stage.
Alex Kapronos, lead singer and rhythm guitar, clad in tight red shirt and black velvet trousers with red pinstripes, appears a combination of David Bowie and a young Michael Caine. Straight-backed, tall and blond, he stalked around the stage imperiously. Nicholas McCarthy (lead guitar and piano) had a muppet-like zeal about him, while bassist Bob Hardy was like a fuzzy blond bear, a tranquil counterpoint to the frenetic energy of the other two. Drummer Paul Thompson was a Beatlesy mop of hair at the back bouncing around.
Also bouncing around were the crowd. In Britain serious 'moshing' is reserved for heavy metal concerts, but crashing around in a churning mass of headbangers holding up fists with first and fourth fingers extended in the Universal Rock Sign Language for 'Awesome', I realised that Argentina is truly a nation of rockers.
Kapronos tried 'Muchas Gracias' and 'Que Tal' and then resorted to English barely discernable even to the English speakers in the crowd. He introduced the band one by one halfway through over a thrumming groove, repeatedly bellowing 'Do – you – want – to – know – his – NAME?' until even the more reserved spectators were yelling 'YES! YES!' with childish glee.
When the inevitable global smash hit 'Take Me Out' was played on the hour mark, the backdrop changed to 4 stately pointillist portraits like Warhol in monochrome. The band really stepped up a gear. Warming up the crowd with an expert touch, they dipped their heads and guitars frequently into the ocean of grasping hands.
Franz Ferdinand are more a band of the groove than the virtuosic solo. At times they cut to one musician following the riff, to be joined one by one by the other band members until the whole unit thumped it out together. If there is one criticism it is that the sound was overloaded, so much so that at times the song was lost in distortion. But this might have been the effect they were going for, being a band of body music rather than head.
They played for a solid hour and a half with a ten minute break. The finale was a breathtaking odyssey of peaks and troughs. At one point no fewer than three people were drumming at the same kit, electrified by strobe lighting, while Kapronos and McCarthy raced around the stage holding their guitars aloft and standing up above the people urging them on. When they finally wound up the last number, the crowd were left panting while the band members performed a neat bow together. Visually arresting, entertaining, stylish and with body to boot. Too British perhaps, but can you really have too much of a good thing?
SUBTE
The BA subway-metro-tube is called the Subte and is a bustling marketplace of blind people selling marker pens and demonstrating their use on a cd, little girls selling stickers that they place on every passenger's lap before coming back round to deal with any buyers, folklorica musicians from Salta playing tiny banjos and panpipes, at least one fantastic sax and piano (full size, don't ask me how) duo, beggars, wisecrackers, lone men selling Computer magazines, biographies of the Argentine Presidents, pharmaceuticals, glasses cases, marker pens, newspapers, cakes and biscuits, marker pens, keyrings pocket torches penknives batteries plug adaptors sweets chocolate school textbooks stickers with voices worn out through years of hawking to a stripped wooden gurgle that scrapes through the endless babbling mash of commuters.
TWO MUSIC REVIEWS 2: MEDESKI MARTIN AND WOOD
Groove Clawing, Pipe Squeaking and Tube Blowing – Jazz at its Freshest
The NY Jazz Trio stormed the Teatro Gran Rex for the Buenos Aires jazz festival showing us vibrant professionalism at its peak.
No-one was expecting this at a jazz gig. Ten minutes after the New York trio had finished their encore the floor lights were up in the Gran Rex but the capacity crowd had refused to disperse. They were very much still there, and producing an insane ruckus. Rhythmic clapping, whooping and the traditional Argentine crowd tune that is chanted in such situations and which can be roughly translated as 'Give us more! Give us more! Give us more!'.
How could they refuse? Medeski, Martin and Wood, contemporary jazz legends, came back on stage blinking in sincere surprise at the feral appreciation of the crowd. They took up their positions and started funking a flagship number when something truly extraordinary happened. Chris Wood, tall angular bassist, disconnected his double bass from its moorings and planted it on the lip of the stage plucking mikeless with his hands clawing a groove. Band leader Billy Martin was next, emerging from his fortress of a kit with his hand shoved up a bizarre percussive pipe that produced a variety of farmyard squeaking noises. Finally John Medeski appeared from behind his banks of keys with a handheld melodica keyboard that he powered through a long rubber tube curling into his mouth like a Arabian hookah pipe.
The crowd were trendily dressed and largely bearded and male. Jazz. The only beard on stage was of scraggly haired Billy Martin, who had managed barely more than 'Muchas Gracias' into the mike but sang in español for a Cuban salsa number, which was the first time Medeski played the baby grand piano at the back of the set. The mix was rich and full, coming principally from the range of keys that were occasionally used with a plucking jazz guitar sound. MMW did their lunatic versions of the mainstay styles and rhythms, touring through an organ drawl trip waltz that homaged Kind of Blue, Ray Charles-esque rhythm and blues, shuffling backbeats, breakbeat electronica and even a soft jazz version of Hendrix's Hey Joe, but each track held its atmospheric aesthetic intact, and their personality came through in their versatility. The show stopper was Chris Wood, who provided a more intense groove on electric but always impressed more with his acrobatics on the upright bass.
Having played for two hours in their respective zones of their stage, the unforeseen finale saw them in a row at the front of the stage, bobbing in unison. They played a cheery blues that with the thick bass, the squeaky whooping of the pipe and the tinny melodica sounded so fresh and divine that one would have liked to throw up two spoons, a cat and a toy car to see what they could come up with. This last feat felt like something they had improvised as a special treat for a particularly deserving audience, and the audience stood or sat, heads bobbing, mouths open at the compulsive synchrony of three musicians at the peak who are tight as they could be after fifteen years, without having lost any of the electricity that has deservedly made them into contemporary legends. It was breathtaking. The crowd were overawed, with those who could not contain their whooping (I confess) shushed angrily by those who puritanically wanted to hear every note. The roaring continued after the trio had left the stage, but when they came back on to bow a final farewell, everyone knew that they couldn't ask for one drop more.
(published in the Buenos Aires Herald)
DECISIONS
I have decided to miss the one year deadline to claim my return flight to London. This is not purely out of dedication to the travel blog. It is born out of a selection of good opportunities, madcap schemes, a raw animal fear of returning to the murky whirlpool of London, a wish to claim the irreality of 'travelling' as a species of real life.
I know that to all of you at home it must seem like I'm having such a good time that I am never going to come back. This is partly true - I am stimulated, growing stronger in my selected areas, freer perhaps, but- this does not change the fact that I love you and miss you all, family and friends. Painfully sometimes. Come and visit me. US$500 from Spain.
I also miss London, green and merrie Englande, seen now through soft focus. At times I feel like an alcoholic Catholic priest dying of malaria in one of Graham Greene's colonial outposts. And the roses just aren't the same. Here they are wild scraggly things, like dogs in a desert. Skin and bone. I deliriously recall the fat buttery things weighing down bushes in an English garden.
Wednesday, February 01, 2006
¡Cómo me gustaría saber tu piropo preferido!
CHANGE OF PERSONNEL
So Ana Cláudia went back to Brasil taking her maracas and her irrepressible loveliness with her and Pablo vanished in the night in the general direction of Ecuador with his tranquil charm and ipod and the Americans Pat & Tony with whom I had enjoyed the puppet party (c.f. blogpost Tengo un cocodrilo) turned up on our doorstep at 9am clutching their rucksacks, considerably ravaged from two months working as farm labourers and hitching round Argentina, much like a latter day Lenny and George. Patrick set about baking bread and Tony began a serious spell of TV watching that would last some days. He was like a starving man given free license in the Harrods Food Hall.
We have now succeeded in capturing Chilean Italo, who has long hair and a flute, and a German photographer called Katia. We maintain the even gender balance and the musical aspect. We will also improve Spanish listening comprehension markedley because the Chilean accent is gloopy and impenetrable.
ACCENTS
I can now recognise the Columbian accent - a melifluous walk in long grass. The Ecuadorian is low and twisted, and the Chilean like trying to have a staring match on the teacups at the funfair. Mexicans mocking, and Argentines like Italians. Sometimes I am told I have an Italian accent, which I hold as an improvement.
HUMAN FETCH AND ANIMAL PIROPOS
Reading in the Plaza Republico de México surrounded by the leafy and succulent area of Belgrano with its preponderance of large houses and Renault Clios, I slowly became aware of a bizarre scene in front of me: a man was playing fetch with his son. In my life I have seen fetch played with perhaps 500 dogs of various breeds, a handful of cats and even with one particularly talented rabbit. But I have never before seen it played with a human being. Nevertheless the boy, who appeared to be around 12 years of age, seemed to be having a whale of a time. He was running backwards and forwards collecting the stick with a big eager grin plastered on his face. I wondered if he was retarded. His panting adrenaline-fuelled smile made me wish I exercised occasionally, in the same nebulous way one might wish to travel to other galaxies. I read my book, occasionally glancing up at the incongruous tableau. Does treating your son like a Labrador amount to child cruelty? Perhaps it would do us all some good to be more In Touch with our Animal Side.
Argentine men are well in touch with their animal side, especially in the Buenos Aires summer. The season is a hot brick on your forehead, a stroll through the desert in a suit of armor, a smoggy well of screeching days and relentless nights. While waiting for the storm to break, people stagger around flustered and gasping, hot blooded and exuding pheromones. Argentine men are renowned for being pushy at the best of times, but at the height of the summer the flow of piropos is like a flood of treacle in the streets.
I am being slowly initiated into the world of the Piropo. A piropo is a chat-up line. Points given for originality, humor and persistence. Piropos can be used anywhere, but are most usually fired at women in the street. Thick skin is a necessity for the piropero. Unless he is a virtuoso, 95% of women will walk on by. But the 5% who smile make it all worthwhile.
In San Telmo’s buzzing Plaza Dorrego, Josh and I sat on a low wall playing chess and practicing piropos. He mostly stuck with his old favorite:
How I would bite you like a grandpa with no teeth.
This engendered quite a few laughs, especially because Argentine chicas just don’t expect piropos from gringos. I tried a lyrical number:
How your eyes mix with my soul.
The sublime poetry was lost on my audience. At this point Francis arrived. Have you ever seen dust motes in a streak of sunlight? They continue swirling around until they find a surface to cling to. Establish a base in Plaza Dorrego, and all the motes collect around you. Francis was first. He is from Angola and speaks 5 languages. His style of piropo was rather aggressive:
Hola! Hola! Hola! Hola! Hola! Hola!
This usually resulted in a disturbed look and a quickening of pace. More chess was played, more beer was drunk and before we knew it we were surrounded by a mass of Argentines, Chileans, Brazilians and Dutch. Every group of females that walked by was subjected to a cacophonic torrent of piropos, ranging from the simplicity of Francis’ approach to the postmodern:
How I would love to know your favorite piropo.
In England the only men who give comments to girls in the street are madmen and construction workers. Yet in Buenos Aires all men do it, from builders to businessmen. And how do the women feel about it? That depends on the tone and quality of the piropo. If done with a smile, everything can be acceptable. Even playing fetch with a 12 year old boy.
After sitting awhile in the Belgrano plaza I finally realized the father and son weren’t playing fetch at all. They were actually having a competition to see who could throw the stick the farthest. This looks very similar to fetch when you only see the turns of one person. And thus is it possible that a dog playing fetch is just curious to see how far his owner can throw a stick. Give those animals some credit.
So Ana Cláudia went back to Brasil taking her maracas and her irrepressible loveliness with her and Pablo vanished in the night in the general direction of Ecuador with his tranquil charm and ipod and the Americans Pat & Tony with whom I had enjoyed the puppet party (c.f. blogpost Tengo un cocodrilo) turned up on our doorstep at 9am clutching their rucksacks, considerably ravaged from two months working as farm labourers and hitching round Argentina, much like a latter day Lenny and George. Patrick set about baking bread and Tony began a serious spell of TV watching that would last some days. He was like a starving man given free license in the Harrods Food Hall.
We have now succeeded in capturing Chilean Italo, who has long hair and a flute, and a German photographer called Katia. We maintain the even gender balance and the musical aspect. We will also improve Spanish listening comprehension markedley because the Chilean accent is gloopy and impenetrable.
ACCENTS
I can now recognise the Columbian accent - a melifluous walk in long grass. The Ecuadorian is low and twisted, and the Chilean like trying to have a staring match on the teacups at the funfair. Mexicans mocking, and Argentines like Italians. Sometimes I am told I have an Italian accent, which I hold as an improvement.
HUMAN FETCH AND ANIMAL PIROPOS
Reading in the Plaza Republico de México surrounded by the leafy and succulent area of Belgrano with its preponderance of large houses and Renault Clios, I slowly became aware of a bizarre scene in front of me: a man was playing fetch with his son. In my life I have seen fetch played with perhaps 500 dogs of various breeds, a handful of cats and even with one particularly talented rabbit. But I have never before seen it played with a human being. Nevertheless the boy, who appeared to be around 12 years of age, seemed to be having a whale of a time. He was running backwards and forwards collecting the stick with a big eager grin plastered on his face. I wondered if he was retarded. His panting adrenaline-fuelled smile made me wish I exercised occasionally, in the same nebulous way one might wish to travel to other galaxies. I read my book, occasionally glancing up at the incongruous tableau. Does treating your son like a Labrador amount to child cruelty? Perhaps it would do us all some good to be more In Touch with our Animal Side.
Argentine men are well in touch with their animal side, especially in the Buenos Aires summer. The season is a hot brick on your forehead, a stroll through the desert in a suit of armor, a smoggy well of screeching days and relentless nights. While waiting for the storm to break, people stagger around flustered and gasping, hot blooded and exuding pheromones. Argentine men are renowned for being pushy at the best of times, but at the height of the summer the flow of piropos is like a flood of treacle in the streets.
I am being slowly initiated into the world of the Piropo. A piropo is a chat-up line. Points given for originality, humor and persistence. Piropos can be used anywhere, but are most usually fired at women in the street. Thick skin is a necessity for the piropero. Unless he is a virtuoso, 95% of women will walk on by. But the 5% who smile make it all worthwhile.
In San Telmo’s buzzing Plaza Dorrego, Josh and I sat on a low wall playing chess and practicing piropos. He mostly stuck with his old favorite:
How I would bite you like a grandpa with no teeth.
This engendered quite a few laughs, especially because Argentine chicas just don’t expect piropos from gringos. I tried a lyrical number:
How your eyes mix with my soul.
The sublime poetry was lost on my audience. At this point Francis arrived. Have you ever seen dust motes in a streak of sunlight? They continue swirling around until they find a surface to cling to. Establish a base in Plaza Dorrego, and all the motes collect around you. Francis was first. He is from Angola and speaks 5 languages. His style of piropo was rather aggressive:
Hola! Hola! Hola! Hola! Hola! Hola!
This usually resulted in a disturbed look and a quickening of pace. More chess was played, more beer was drunk and before we knew it we were surrounded by a mass of Argentines, Chileans, Brazilians and Dutch. Every group of females that walked by was subjected to a cacophonic torrent of piropos, ranging from the simplicity of Francis’ approach to the postmodern:
How I would love to know your favorite piropo.
In England the only men who give comments to girls in the street are madmen and construction workers. Yet in Buenos Aires all men do it, from builders to businessmen. And how do the women feel about it? That depends on the tone and quality of the piropo. If done with a smile, everything can be acceptable. Even playing fetch with a 12 year old boy.
After sitting awhile in the Belgrano plaza I finally realized the father and son weren’t playing fetch at all. They were actually having a competition to see who could throw the stick the farthest. This looks very similar to fetch when you only see the turns of one person. And thus is it possible that a dog playing fetch is just curious to see how far his owner can throw a stick. Give those animals some credit.
Friday, January 20, 2006
Errata
Jeanette's name is actually spelt with two 'n's. Jneanette. And she doesn't come from OHIO, she comes from IOWA. Or was it Idaho? Ah, who fucking cares.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Porteño Hothouses in the Screaming Summer
VIENE QUEMANDO LA BRISA
Yesterday was hot. Today it is 35 degrees, but yesterday was hot. People stood gasping at the foot of buildings. Even the pollution couldn't stir. Walking past offices gusts of air conditioning reared up against the stagnant heat, thought better of it and returned to their marble staircases. I felt like I was wading through hot sand. Sweat poured from every orifice and immediately evaporated. The city is a desert at times like this, the cloying mass of people insufferable. Everywhere you look people are rising battered bottles to their lips, sweat coated throats scraping to absorb the vanished liquid.
CRIMSON BLEATINGS
At the stroke of midnight on 24-5 December Buenos Aires erupts in fireworks. From the ninth floor I saw them. You could pick out the posher areas from the grandeur of the flares. Every year at least 30 children lose their noses. But my, was it pretty!
Argentine New Year's Eve usually consists of a family dinner followed by dancing in the streets.
I went to a cosy little flat in the centre, ate hake and drank viciously strong caipiroskas, caipirissimas and caipirwipers mixed up by Ana Cláudia and Fabiano from Brasil. We stumbled out into the heavy night and onto a private bar called 878, in a large house behind a locked door. I took something small and square and brightly coloured and the balloons started to look like marshmallows. Finally I could fit through the tiny door into the exquisite garden! Jeanette and Columbian Harry fell asleep frozen in snogging position. A Canadian cured me of the hiccups with a clever spoon and cup trick. I forced myself out into the open as the world was whirling around me. We tried to go to a factory party but I couldn't bring myself to enter anywhere with gates. I watched trees sucking up life from the soil and spraying it into the sky. Golden butterflies assailed my senses. The sun awoke roaring and poured its molten lava onto a windless city scarred with debris. What few cars buzzed the streets driven by wired clones. And 2006 will hold more exultation and pain, weeping pails of laughter, bright peals of bitter tears. As long as we taste the extremes, we know we're ALIVE-
MI CASA ES SUE'S CASA
San Telmo is the Hackney of Buenos Aires. Incidentally an entreprising graffiteur has painted the words 'Malos Aires' in strategic points around the city. Very witty I think, though a trifle negative. The barrio is filled with tango dancers, street musicians, artisan fairs, cheap parrillas (grills upon which the famous meat is slapped by lean greasy men while you sit at a plastic tablecloth dipping hard bread into chimichurri) and old crumbling town houses with high ceilings and open courtyards.
One of these crumbling houses has become mine for the next two months, along with Jeanette from Ohio, Ana Clàudia from Brasilia and Pablo from Ecuador. Personnel subject to change. It is a house to fall in love with, leaning up against cracked walls weeping and licking the paint. The spacious airy living room (buenos aires) yawns out onto a long and narrow balcony. Original Argentine art adorns every wall. Sombreros are scattered in every cranny. And the crowning splendour is the roof splayed wide in a huge terrace. The bedrooms enter onto an open air courtyard, so you can be doused in warm summer rain journeying from bathroom to kitchen.
LA FIESTA
Our house warming party consisted of 4 people (most of them over 50) until about 1am when 200 people I had never met arrived bearing cachassa and wide grins. One of the crazy Irish amigos turned up with sad tales of cocaine and whiskey addiction driving his group asunder. Mara sparkled exquisitely. I played guitar in the gorgeous rain gushing through the open middle of the house. Tourists chatted in Spanish for 10 minutes before realising they were both American. Argentines played folk melodies and collapsed in hallways. I'd like to think every South American country was represented. All readers are invited to the next one. Simply present a printout of this blogpost to guarantee entry to the VIP area (my room. It's a little bit dark but I like it like that).
I feel a real resident now. And I can understand 75% of what most people say (as long as they have subtitles flashing across their crotches). All I need now is 4 or 5 pedigree dogs, some plastic surgery and a therapist.
Yesterday was hot. Today it is 35 degrees, but yesterday was hot. People stood gasping at the foot of buildings. Even the pollution couldn't stir. Walking past offices gusts of air conditioning reared up against the stagnant heat, thought better of it and returned to their marble staircases. I felt like I was wading through hot sand. Sweat poured from every orifice and immediately evaporated. The city is a desert at times like this, the cloying mass of people insufferable. Everywhere you look people are rising battered bottles to their lips, sweat coated throats scraping to absorb the vanished liquid.
CRIMSON BLEATINGS
At the stroke of midnight on 24-5 December Buenos Aires erupts in fireworks. From the ninth floor I saw them. You could pick out the posher areas from the grandeur of the flares. Every year at least 30 children lose their noses. But my, was it pretty!
Argentine New Year's Eve usually consists of a family dinner followed by dancing in the streets.
I went to a cosy little flat in the centre, ate hake and drank viciously strong caipiroskas, caipirissimas and caipirwipers mixed up by Ana Cláudia and Fabiano from Brasil. We stumbled out into the heavy night and onto a private bar called 878, in a large house behind a locked door. I took something small and square and brightly coloured and the balloons started to look like marshmallows. Finally I could fit through the tiny door into the exquisite garden! Jeanette and Columbian Harry fell asleep frozen in snogging position. A Canadian cured me of the hiccups with a clever spoon and cup trick. I forced myself out into the open as the world was whirling around me. We tried to go to a factory party but I couldn't bring myself to enter anywhere with gates. I watched trees sucking up life from the soil and spraying it into the sky. Golden butterflies assailed my senses. The sun awoke roaring and poured its molten lava onto a windless city scarred with debris. What few cars buzzed the streets driven by wired clones. And 2006 will hold more exultation and pain, weeping pails of laughter, bright peals of bitter tears. As long as we taste the extremes, we know we're ALIVE-
MI CASA ES SUE'S CASA
San Telmo is the Hackney of Buenos Aires. Incidentally an entreprising graffiteur has painted the words 'Malos Aires' in strategic points around the city. Very witty I think, though a trifle negative. The barrio is filled with tango dancers, street musicians, artisan fairs, cheap parrillas (grills upon which the famous meat is slapped by lean greasy men while you sit at a plastic tablecloth dipping hard bread into chimichurri) and old crumbling town houses with high ceilings and open courtyards.
One of these crumbling houses has become mine for the next two months, along with Jeanette from Ohio, Ana Clàudia from Brasilia and Pablo from Ecuador. Personnel subject to change. It is a house to fall in love with, leaning up against cracked walls weeping and licking the paint. The spacious airy living room (buenos aires) yawns out onto a long and narrow balcony. Original Argentine art adorns every wall. Sombreros are scattered in every cranny. And the crowning splendour is the roof splayed wide in a huge terrace. The bedrooms enter onto an open air courtyard, so you can be doused in warm summer rain journeying from bathroom to kitchen.
LA FIESTA
Our house warming party consisted of 4 people (most of them over 50) until about 1am when 200 people I had never met arrived bearing cachassa and wide grins. One of the crazy Irish amigos turned up with sad tales of cocaine and whiskey addiction driving his group asunder. Mara sparkled exquisitely. I played guitar in the gorgeous rain gushing through the open middle of the house. Tourists chatted in Spanish for 10 minutes before realising they were both American. Argentines played folk melodies and collapsed in hallways. I'd like to think every South American country was represented. All readers are invited to the next one. Simply present a printout of this blogpost to guarantee entry to the VIP area (my room. It's a little bit dark but I like it like that).
I feel a real resident now. And I can understand 75% of what most people say (as long as they have subtitles flashing across their crotches). All I need now is 4 or 5 pedigree dogs, some plastic surgery and a therapist.
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