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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