a circus made of brass

paris is a tumbling star, a circus made of brass

that strolls amidst an atmosphere whence memory doth relapse.

a fountain of forgetfulness where beauty hangs its coat

undressing in the sweet demise of treasure come afloat.

a pearl of wisdom plunders what the mind cannot perceive

the maidens of deception wither conscience at their ease.

a gnome of green felicity perchances at your door

offering satchels full of bon bons and a chance to settle scores.

tempting though it is to kiss the grounds with lips devout

and savior all the bittersweet to which these gifts amount,

missing is that nimble bliss in which our minds delight

wagering the sun when but a candle will suffice.

black marketeering, part I.

The extent to which geographical proximity is to be creatively exploited isn’t always clear. For example, how do you adequately portray the stench of the Calcutta sewer system once you’ve returned to making artisanal soaps in the south of France? Is memory to be trusted – or must we lean ever more desperately on intent and imagination to recall the events and impressions of past? I am sitting at the desk of an aspiring investment banker (or so I imagine him to be based a sampling of the literature on display: Management for Dummies; The Singularity is Near: Why Humans Transcend Biology; The Complete Memoires of Casanova – I think you get the point) and trying to evoke an image of Paraguay, that island-surrounded-by-land that seems ever-so-further-away from Paris than it did in Buenos Aires, much less several weeks ago in Missouri. It is easy to exaggerate the poverty of a given place when remembered through the suds of a marble-studded bathtub. All too often, we drift toward one extreme or another in a desperate attempt to avoid the ocean of Convention and its relentless waves of boredom that beat upon the brim of our Expectations and threaten our isthmus of momentary interest in the world (this sentence being but one case in point). However, when all is said and done, extremes rarely display the same hue our imaginations grant them – and the patterns of poverty and wealth alike eventually seem to be much more integral to our own historicity than we’d previously imagined. Is the goal of meritocracy and opportunity merely the ability to imagine oneself wealthy one day and homeless the next? I, for one, am not convinced it isn’t. With that in mind, I will attempt to describe the events of my last days in Paraguay from the third floor of a six-story mansion in the heart of Paris’ Latin Quarter.

We awoke midday to another glorious exhibition from the Paraguayan sun-god’s armoire – and with mate, sandwiches and an extensive array of bad music on hand, set off for Ciudad del Este several hours later than originally intended. A shame, because the little we saw of the countryside before sunset was truly astounding: from a narrow, two-land highway hugging ambling hillsides of endless summer nights, our miniscule chileno-made SUV darted through the fertile fields of the central southern cone amongst an abundance of Mercedes, mini-motos and donkeys alike. Small red-clay roads protruded from our paved passageway into a rambling horizon of straw huts, dotted palm trees and slowly burning fires. Whether they were smoldering trash or overgrown grass, we couldn’t tell. In any case, it smelled wonderful - the scent of rustic freedom married to pre-modern estival confine. It soon grew dark and all we could make out were sporadic headlights in the distance and hillside fires to our left and right. Though nearly 40% of registered Paraguayan voters are said to be members of the long-dominant Colorado Party and its powerful bureaucratic apparatus, the state doesn’t strike one as particularly present outside of the capital (Nor, at times, within it. The presidential palace is protected by what look to be 2-3 armed men sipping terere and texting their mistresses; Nico and I could gather a group of 10-15 good men and carry out the coup in a matter of minutes.) Nonetheless, there are a fearful amount of military roadblocks along the few cross-country fairways – and we were bound to be stopped before too long.

Analia, our Paraguayan host, was terrified of driving anywhere outside of the capital or the area around her lake house, so Marcos took the wheel that evening. He’d left his argie driver’s license back home so we rang the police to figure out potential fines: 150,000 guaranis, or about $12/person once divided by three - a palatable amount, in any case. Thus when the time came to pull over, we were less than alarmed. Oddly, however, the young gentlemen wanted our identification papers rather than drivers licenses, documents we’d taken great caution to leave in the capital rather than risk theft thereof in the notorious Ciudad del Este. Yet when Marcos failed to charm the subordinate soldier with his doctors’ glasses, graying mane and all-around-Argentine-allure, we were called into the roadside station to explain ourselves. It was a small wooden cabin about 10 feet from the road, accompanied by neither door nor glass window. Inside, a single, pornographic picture calendar adorned the wall - next to which sat the commanding officer, a pink and portly specimen, at a lone, wooden desk. Our host reclined, feigning familiarity with the plastic and metal object on his desk (an old Dell) – and intently grilling us with a mixture of mischief and disdain.

If I’ve learned anything passing through Canada and Paraguay in the past several months, it’s that traveling with a multinational crew by land never pays, no matter how well you speak the language. “How do you know each other?” goes the usual refrain. “We studied together in France many years ago,” – or – “We’re in the same history program in New York,” two recent responses. Either might pass for a respectable response in Geneva, though was rather suspect in the Paraguayan outback. Unimpressed, our lardly law-enforcer dispatched a colleague to further investigate our papers (in this case a Missouri driver’s license and an Argentine national ID card). “You realize you’re technically illegal at the moment,” he kindly reminded us. “We cannot let you proceed without passports.” “But since we’re staying within national boundaries, your highness, we thought that secondary identification would suffice.” “You can go back to Asuncion, get your papers and then come back. How does that sound?” “We would love to, your honor, though that puts us back three hours’ journey. Can we have someone fax you photo-copies of our passports from Asuncion?” “Well, yes, I suppose,” our tubby captain seemed to capitulate. “Assuming, of course, you have a fax machine?” “No, we don’t.” “How would you suppose we go about faxing you then, good sir?” “I haven’t the slightest idea. I guess the young American and Argentine will get to spend the night in jail with us,” he grumbled with a grin. In the end, we profusely apologized and they simply let us on our way without paying a dime. A game of lethargic chicken, if you will. Nonetheless, the subordinate officers were all quite friendly - even slightly apologetic for the inconvenience - whereas their corpulent captain seemed to regret the laziness with which he’d let us go.

We reached our destination several hours later and in time for a late dinner. Despite the swathes of humanity that throng the array of indoor and outdoor markets in the city’s center by day, the commercial capital of the tri-border region was eerily deserted by night. True, there were a spattering of cheap to mid range hotels within a four-block radius and several uninspiring restaurants, though virtually not a pedestrian in site, despite the presence of inconspicuous casinos that sat on virtually every corner. Who frequented such establishments we would never know. The security guards with pump-action shotguns in each entrance didn’t prove as appealing as that class in marketing had hitherto made them appear. That being said, we parked and began to consult our freebee guide, beginning by checking if they had a spare room at Mi Abuelita (‘My Grandmother’s). A lad of 14-15 years lazily loomed at the entrance in shorts, tee shirt and flip-flops - the barrel of pump-action shotgun in one hand with a thermos of tea in the other. 30% of employment in eastern Paraguayan nightlife seemed to be in security – and virtually everyone was conspicuously armed. There had been a spattering of kidnappings and landlord-murders in the north of the country in recent months, though I couldn’t quite crack the code in Ciudad del Este (nor did the locals want to divulge further information). Just get used to everyone – virtually everyone - being armed wherever you go: from the motel to the pizza parlor, the gas station to the roadside restaurant. A true gangster’s paradise: one where everyone’s locked and loaded without having the faintest intention of popping off.

(off for a refreshment in the gardens, to be continued)

when it rains it pours.

Fortunes can change in a frightfully short period of time. One moment, you’re along the banks of the Seine, girl and wine in hand, a mouth full of laughter and affection – and plenty of cigarettes to spare. An intemperate tongue and misplaced key and an hour later and you’re desperately gleaning the predawn-ridden streets of a dormant giant in search of nicotine and a moment’s respite from the glacial morning air. You do have the key to your sister’s place up the way, and you tiptoe up the five crack-of-dawn flights on the off chance she’s had a wild one on the other side of town and crashed with a mate. No dice. The five-foot hallway separating the 8 square-foot kitchenette from the rest of the studio leads to nothing but darkness and the stale linger of recently extinguished smoke. It will take an ounce of luck just to exit the crime scene unnoticed. You continue your southward march with an eye out for fellow puffers, though not quite sure your utterly disheveled state of visible mind or sleep-deprived frog-speak will do the trick. “Would you be willing to part with one of those tobacco-agents for 50 cents, my good sir?” “I’ve only one left.” I stare at him in utter bewilderment, trying to determine whether or not he responded in Dutch or Danish before rephrasing the question. “Could you possibly sell me a cigarette for a appropriate and agreed upon rate of monetary exchange, my fair fellow citizen?” “As I said, I’ve only one left,” he repeats in perfect French and a slight grimace of sympathetic confusion. I scratch my head, pause for a moment’s reflection, thank him in mutters and continue on my way. Only once he’d apologized and wished me a good day after I’d turned my back did I realize in which language he’d addressed me.

I wander down the winding rue Mouffetard where the Saturday morning market’s beginning to come to life. In a matter of hours, the street witnesses a remarkable turnaround in the aesthetic of its transitory populace. The inebriated, gel-and-leather-jacket-donning bridge-and-tunnelers scoping the rugby bar for AUP girls had cleared out by 4am, leaving just enough time for the sanitary brigades to clear the narrow, meandering alley with civil rights hoses before crates of rotisserie chickens can be carted in from the suburbs. Producers and merchants of every delectable delight begin to set up shop as the aging alcoholics switch from cognac to coffee and recount the non-events of recent in the café across the way. It’s shaping up to be another lovely day, though my purpling legs must still reckon with my decision to change into cut-off Salvation Army shorts for my first icy, moonlit ramble since Buenos Aires. I’m not going to lie. I was on my way to the area’s only Starbucks in search of a medium coffee and a big purple chair to get my thoughts in order. I’d left my third-floor bay window open in the six-story mansion where I’d been laying my head and could always try and scale the sleek stone with my calcium-fortified, overgrown and under manicured fingernails. At this point, the sun was already rearing most of its head and I could also simply knock on the door and kindly remind my hosts I’d forgotten my key when I went down for a smoke at 2am. The only problem is that I’ve been staying in the house for seven days and had yet to encounter a single human being, apart from stumbling into the wrong bedroom my first night there. Not in the proper state of mind for such an arid encounter, I did the only other thing that comes naturally in this town: head for the Luxembourg gardens.

In the hidden tome of urban mythology, they say you’re allowed to fall asleep on the 2/3 and wake up in the Bronx at 5:42am in a cold drizzle. Just cross the platform and don’t try anything funny, white boy (i.e. hailing gypsy cabs, early morning strolls back to Harlem). Sure, all the hard-working nurses, cooks and security guards who rise at 5am on a Sunday to make the multicultural slave-ship pilgrimage downtown might look at you with barely concealed disdain (as they well should); you may stand out like a sore-thumb, but your civilizational insolence is somehow tolerated. I guess it comes with the territory. On the other hand, to deliberately hop the metro to catch a moment’s kip and warm up a seemed a tad too much for some reason. It’s precisely when you drift off around the Odeon stop that your favorite Parisian professor you’d been meaning to write boards the train on his way to consult the prime minister over orange juice and croissants. So much for that fabled letter of recommendation. No, better go find a nice juicy bench - preferably somewhere under the mounting morning sun though also out of view from the rest of humanity, if possible. I settle for two chairs facing east along the central fountain. Debating between using yesterday’s freebee paper as a blanket or to block the sun, I go for the latter – and momentarily drift into the netherworld of a foolishness-induced subconscious state. Any number of bon petit bourgeois early risers have embarked on their Saturday morning trot, while a handful of mental stragglers make makeshift loops between the park’s southern entrance and the Senate in search of treasure and dog shit. The breeze is just too much, however, and I’m forced to eventually mount my cloudy cranium and direct the rest of my mass into the distance.

I wander back toward my sisters. It’s nearing 9am and I’m debating whether she could have made off for breakfast with her boss or boyfriend to discuss important matters of state. Most likely not. Still, I pass the Pantheon but again and make for the rue Cardinal Lemoine. The tobacco shops and newsstands have finally opened and I reluctantly buy a pack - too scared to mount another failed freebie charm campaign under the auspices of my 50-cent coin. I buy a paper as well and decide to make for ‘Breakfast in America’ – a cheap, cozy diner I’d worked in several years ago for all of six weeks before being ‘kindly discharged’ for visiting my mother in London when I’d been assigned the Friday, Saturday and perhaps even Sunday evening shift. Anyhow, it’s the only place in town with cheap, abundant refills of good American-brewed joe – and I was longing for a speckle of comfort in what then appeared a lonely, if still exceedingly beautiful, world. I’m trying to make out the headlines on the French paper, but it’s all I can do not to brutishly rub my bare legs in an attempt to facilitate the illusion of temporary warmth. The American girl keeps filling my cup and I manage to leaf through a few articles as the joint begins to famously fill up. I’d been taking up an entire booth and decide to make a run for it, leaving 2.50 and making for the door (seasoned Americans in Paris don’t tip). An all-too-brisk morning is shaping up to be quite a heavenly day, and though my heart’s racing like a Chinese Chihuahua evading the butcher, a strange sleep-induced delirium seems to be setting in. Go back to my sisters? Call the Scottish guy I met the other day who lives on the other side of the park and catch a few hours’ kip at his? Better not. Best to go back to the mansion and finally confront my venerable hosts. “Hello, it’s Evan, the American boy – I forgot my key as I went to get the paper this morning.” “Do repeat – who is this?” I hesitate, furiously pondering how to connect the movements of the brain to those of the tongue. “Yes, um, I it is, Laure’s American friend who has, um, been sleeping in your house for what seems to be a week now.” “Oh yes, you, the one we’ve never seen,” she mutters before buzzing me in. I enter and once again disappear into a labyrinth of corridors and elevators before removing my peasant shoes and collapsing fully clothed into bed.

northern winds of nostalgia.

An Ode to Argentina

(dedicated to the inhabitants of 1230 Saavedra)

Fare thee well my cobbled count of southern love-dunes, a spell of yet unbound,

To find a feathered city light of opulent renown.

We whisk away the day in awe of that we’ve yet to be,

Unfounded in the city’s paw, a fight we shall not flee.

Amidst the dust of crumbling times, an ocean rears its head,

To raise its glass in feast and fast and follow us to bed.

At peace – perhaps – unwound, relapse, we settle into tone,

And pray for color’s candid eye to safely bring us home.

The Coming Revolution (for Nico)

Friendship is a fresh croissant that settles on your tongue,

In savory bouts of life-release, rewinding what’s undone.

Forestall the momentary battle - if not the looming war,

Into which we fling ourselves, in haste if not remorse.

But sweet it is the spell that sings my everymorning song,

Evokes a thousand splendid rights for every lonely wrong.

So sing I will and drink I must - my gourd may never last,

And on into the night we sail - a friend, my weathered mast.

In degrees of varying altitude we bop from land to land,

In search of golden panda bears adorned in veils of sand.

Bestowing gifts, carousing cants, we dance amongst the dead,

And dream of sowing scarves with neither needle nor a thread.

Come out, my dear, into the light, the stairs have come undone,

The attic’s in the garden playing hopscotch with the bonne.

The basement’s in the bathroom, shaving, looking for a comb,

The skeleton’s are knocking but the closet’s put on hold.

The skies are ripe for picking what the earth cares not to grant,

To live a life in sin if in the end you just recant.

asuncionautics.

despite the two-hour delay into the illustrious capital, my cavalcade remained faithful to the apogee of our ship's arrival. it had been many a moon since we last convened, yet there was little confusion as to whom was whom. 'look at you - you dirty, bearded, bohemian bastard!' was the general reception amongst my female companions. 'you have changed, evancho,' another took great pains to remind me. 'you aren't the gangster to which you used to aspire,' she would later seem to lament. if paraguayans share one thing in common with their human counterparts in the 16e arrondissement, tis that socio-aesthetic experimentation is a big no-no. here, as in the chic-er quarters of parigi-town, one dresses within one's class from the cradle to the grave & with no margin of error. perhaps the ability to do so is the defining characteristic of the postmodern, middle-class, petitbourgeois american condition: we can rock jordans in 3rd grade, sambas in 5th, vans in 7th, '95 air max our freshman year and go on to graduate in birks (i.e. about as white as not-dancing to the postal service on a portland's summer eve.) somewhat akin to doing art history before going on to law school. enough cynicism, however, and on to more important matters.

it was a gorgeous, breezy day and we stopped off for a bite at classic downtown dive in the heart of the sunny, sleepy capital. we had mantioca empanadas and pints of pilsen, one of two household national brews - the other being 'bavaria' - if that gives you an idea of who runs this land. while we're at it, it shall be noted that the country's most recent dictator, alfredo stroessner, who ruled the dominion with an iron fist from 1954-1989, was also the son of a purported bavarian brewmaster. here, at left, he lies in all his imperial splendor in a portrait from the museum of memory commemorating the ten-thousand people detained and tortured in a downtown corner rowhouse up til the end of his reign. odd, you may wonder, they should display him in what looks to be his prime. memories do have a way of running away from us, i suppose. in any case, he's unlikely to enter their paraguayan pantheon anytime soon (these things usually take several generations to heal, do they not?) - which was just across the street, so we paid the bill and ambled on over.

two soldiers, poised and positioned to stare into each other's souls for entire minutes on end, stood erect at the top of the steps as we saluted our way into the holiest of military shrines. there within a matter of meters lied the remains of doctor gaspar de francia and francisco solano lopez - two of modernity's most destructively creative, if not ill-forgotten, minds. the former is celebrated as the country's first successful doctoral candidate (theology at cordoba) and with his intellectual prowess monopolized the country's post-independence political platform from 1814-1840, during which time he managed to successfully seal the country off from the world - which isn't to say he didn't have his more illuminated aspects. though an avid admirer of robespierre and many of the Revolution's 'modernizing' tendencies, he applied drastic measures against the movement of peoples and goods in an effort to prevent the accumulation of national debt and foreign peddling in domestic affairs. at one point, the only things that got through customs scathe-free were books and munitions - an inquiring despot, if nothing else. when the pope excommunicated him for expropriating church lands, he responded in kind: "If the Holy Father himself should come to Paraguay I would make him my private chaplain."

francisco solano lopez, for his part, was no stranger to adversity, either. after making an irish prostitute he picked off the street in paris the empress of paraguay, he returned to the 'island surrounded by land' to embark upon the most disastrous war in the continent's history. though it is still highly disputed as to whom is ultimately to blame for the ensuing genocide - solano's madness, british capital, bourgeois argentine expansionism, etc - the former remains a national hero in what then became the 'land of women.' indeed, in a country where upwards of 75% of the male population is said to have perished, whereas the bulk of maimed survivors remained impotent, it comes as no surprise that paraguayan settlement would become a tempting option for your mid-late 19th century morman castaway (don't worry, my sources tell me they've yet to leave). at one point, so the all-too-frighteningly-probable legend goes, things became so drastic that there was only one paraguayan boy to fend off every five brazilians, argentines and uruguayans. in attempts to simultaneously allude the enemy as to their real age and inspire a sense of fear, they would paint themselves and plaster yerba mate to their faces to resemble beards. i met an art historian, leftist militant and campesino activist in a national reserve last week who told me of a certain town outside of asuncion where nearly everyone has the same surname to this day, ozuna (check the phone book once you're down here). though certain conquistadors were said to have more than had their way with the 16th century female population - especially in and around the future sight of asuncion, where the native women had established the only self-sufficient sedentary civilization of sorts within hundreds of miles - the abundance of ozunas owes itself entirely to the grande guerra, as the paraguayans simply refer to what we in the north call the war of the triple alliance. in this particular town, the war had wiped out the entire male population - bar one survivor with no arms or legs that lived in a basket. desperate to repopulate their devastated population (without considering a number of other factors), the women would pick him up and pass him around the village, each having a go before returning him to his basket.

once having imbibed the lion-hearted airs that house the patria's national heroes, we went for a pedestrian jaunt around the city's center, starting with the abandoned railway (above) and skimming the edge of the city's most notorious slum towards the presidential palace a 1/2 mile down the road. our eco-tour in modern urbanism began in the plaza uruguaya, a peaceful though dirt-trodden park just across from the train station that now serves as make-shift temporary housing for what seem to be new arrivals to capital from the campo (right). at times tolerated - others arbitrarily expelled with arielsharonesque compassion - i am told they perennially come and go: tents pitched and fires stoked one day, tattered public grounds abandoned to the lonesome dirt the next. from here we descend westward along the avenida presidente franco toward the plaza housing parliament, an uber-modern glass and steel structure of sharp angles and sleek metal that's managed to retain several small, interspersed portions of original red brick that housed the previous structure - somewhat akin to what DC zoning regulations required of new construction in foggy bottom 20 years ago (ex: the uruguayan embassy). despite the lovely day, the neatly-kept plaza is mostly abandoned, save the odd taiwanese tourist. a small, half empty parking lot is scattered with shiny S-class benzinos of various colors, while a smattering of soldiers patrol the grounds. in the middle of the plaza stands the statue of 30-foot copper tree whose limbs have all been hacked away (or, rather, never granted by the artist). assuming it to be an allegory of sorts for human rights abuses of previous regimes, i didn't expect the following heading: "Asuncion - Capital of American Culture, 2009."

parliament's sleek new headquarters have the advantage of being perched at the edge of a minor precipice overlooking a bay that gives way to the rio paraguay, beyond whose natural frontier lies the interminable chaco desert, a vast expanse of arid weeds, chalked soil and stunted palm trees that consumes nearly 2/3 of the national territory. the only disadvantage of such a locale is that it is also gives way to the largest slum the city lays claim to. the sprawling shanty-principality begins literally 100 feet from where the steps of parliament leave off and quietly descends into the bay, embracing the verdant chaos of an environmentally precarious existence squeezed between a peacefully sclerotic and quasi-crumbling semi-civilization to one side and an encroaching body of water on the other. tisn't even that their presence is an aesthetic blight upon the city's good name; characteristic of so many contradictions, they blend rather nicely into the sleepy, semi-urban landscape that fades into the earth as it approaches the river. nor does the material contrast it provokes stun the observer as might first be imagined. not only is the observer not offended - what's most striking about the whole affair is precisely how natural the whole thing feels. as though our sensitivities had been shat through a mustard-colored kaleidoscope and we forget to take our 1-D glasses off. this is the world as it is, could, should and shall be, the natural order of the ontological puzzle as each piece carelessly falls into place. there is an eerie peace that reigns over everything - an accord unattained from plato to nozick alike. keep in mind that neither the moral ambiguity of great wealth nor abject poverty is in question here - merely the ease with which they're peacefully accepted, internalized and forgotten - and then subsequently reproduced.

career fairy-syzing.

i sat in my room sipping mate, pondering subsequent moves. i'd been sick for what seemed far too long a time and was aching to snag a one-ticket - the shortest path to freedom for any foresight-forsaken fool. or perhaps not. my roommate had recommended a bus service that promised milk, honey and whiskey, and i sprung at the opportunity. who knows, he said, you might even be able to get a ticket online and save the trip to the dante's-bottom-drawer-that-is-Retiro. after filling out several simple details regarding height, weight, political views and marital status, i reached a drop-down button labeled 'occupation.' oddly enough, the only profession listed before clicking was that of 'actor.' something about beginning with an 'A,' i imagine - surely there there can't be many more.

when one fills out the questionnaire in missouri public middle schools intended to help rebellious, insecure and pimply 13 year-olds predict their five most likely future career options, they usually ask things like "do you like movies that take place in outer space?" - or - "do you like playing with fire" - or - "do you know how to operate a firearm and haven't the slightest inhibition from doing so?" - or - "are you better at catching or throwing?" ...by the end of the afternoon, everyone thinks they have a rough idea of who's going to be the veterinarian, the janitor, the nurse and the one-gram-possessing convict ironing out mississippi license plates til kingdom come. nonetheless, however socio-economically imaginative our teachers are taught to teach us, there must be some epistemological limits to the construction of the american dream. limits within which the dream can simmer, if you will. aim to be an astronaut, my dear, not a peddler of poems. dreams, as drifters will remind us, trade in different currency - and we do still live in the age of the nation-state. so when i clicked to fill out the paraguayan bus line's option under 'occupation,' little did i know to what range of professions their population could theoretically, in terms of bus transportation, aspire.

in the 'A's alone, we've any number of enticing life-commitments apart from acting (remember we're translating from the spanish) - and once you've gotten the tenth-grade broadway bug out of your system you're finally free to choose between astrologist, traffic cop, anthropologist, artisan, referee and astronomer. 'B's can rest assured they've both ballerinas and biologists in their court, whereas the 'C's will attest to the number of caddies, boat captains, cartographers, commentators and composers they've sent second class on the bus from Bs As to Asuncion. dandies dressed in 'D' will delight in the hordes of diplomats, book binders, private detectives and DJ's that are lining up for the hell of it, whereas 'E's must content themselves with excavationists, ethnographers, engineers trained in explosives and escape artists. oh, fret not, dear reader, there's more. our trusty conductor is also expecting an appearance from a certain hydrologist, another lithographer, an expert ice cream man and an regionally renowned maker of fine cheeses. the miner shall sit next to the model, whereas the urban landscape gardener will have to make due next to the shepherd's bucolic stench. of course, we'll leave the geneticist to fend off the philosopher, behind whom we'll cram the nutritionist with our cantankerously corpulent opera singer. meanwhile, the notary public's playing cards with the pizza delivery boy as the painter makes faces behind the pilot's back (that luckily only the doorman can see). the radiographer's taken to the toilet - and only time will tell when the supreme court judge and the sociologist will finally come to blows. the shoemaker's tossed in the towel and sought a well-earned siesta - which wasn't easy as the wet-whistled welder noisily weaned the gravedigger off his gargling gourd. have it as you will, there wasn't a peep out of the vigilante - who sat peacefully at the back of the bus, pondering his subsequent move.

frolicking all the way to the frontera.

i packed my rucksack and set off for the subway in the mid-afternoon bonairense sun. in true late-sabbath-day fashion, everything was illuminated, traffic was little, the pedestrian presence light. helios was smiling upon the cafe just across the way and a slight southern breeze tickled my hind-side as i made for the avenida san juan. in short, a perfect day to set sail for other shores. your host has given you its blessing, you have its temporal authority to depart.

on roughly an hour's sleep, i'd made the eventual early-to-mid morning transfer from quilmes to yerba mate only hours before setting off. had been another late, though pleasantly un-rambunctious evening in and out of corner dives and bodegas, scribbling on napkins and smoking in the cold, watching the endless sea of cabbies whisk by as you wait for your compañera to show. a few hours' transfer of tales later, we were ambling along the empty city streets, making our way for congress and whatever tales the early morning avenue had to tell. we ducked into a cafe for the latter au lait and a medialuna or two, just as the sun began to lift its wintry head - and squinted in awe as it briskly brightened the haussmannian edifice kitty corner from our groundfloor perch. little is more glorious than the cold and sunny arousal of a sleeping metropolis on a sunday morning. you've no other task but to find a newspaper and carelessly count your blessings.

a 14-peso coffee and several heavy-eyed articles into the freshly minted august edition of le monde diplomatique later, i was aboard my earth-faring beauty, the ever-so-amply noted crucero del norte, amidst who's arms i would reach the calm, ocean-less shores of the paraguayan capital within 20 hours. as i'd both hoped and feared, our lovely butler brought around a tray of chocolates and whiskey within moments of hitting the highway. being in no position to either read my paper or lean over the middle-aged women to my right to hopelessly divine what hugo mortensen was whispering in subtitles on the stunted screen, i peered into the future in a sleep-deprived, tipsifying daze as we sailed down the highway into the outlying ends of the early evening northern sprawl. there is truly no experience like sitting front-row, second-story of a double-decker bus thrusting its way into the horizon. it is the closest thing thing to feel-riding the future i've ever felt - especially when in the middle of the pampa at the crack of dawn. you're at the cusp of the earthly condition, always a mili-second ahead of the rest of humanity - where time and distance furiously make love and you're their first born, peering through the looking-glass of the massive windshield as you pass the world by (and not the other way around). apart, of course, from the conductor directly below you, himself responsible for steering our fabled time-ship.

i awoke bright and early and went below to get a black coffee from one of the sugar-and-caffeine dispensers these 'cama con/servicio' bus routes are known for. minutes later, we happened upon an all-too-recent road block of sorts. paraguay, as i've recently come to learn from tendentious personal experience, is notoriously full of police checks along its principle thoroughfares; that being said, we were still 10km south of the border and couldn't make out any authoritative intervention up ahead - nor did it appear to be an accident. all i could make out was a non-vehicular obstacle and a small congregation of fellow human-folk some 100m ahead. after 15 minutes of inactivity and the mid-morning sun ominously beating upon my stinken and poorly-rested brow, i decided to (pretend to) investigate the cause of our delay. it was already shaping up to be a beautiful day as i walked toward the source of our minor morning troubles. truck drivers and traveling salesmen were leaning against their respective modes of transportation, sipping mate - or terere - depending from which side of the border they hailed, looking generally uninterested in the cause of our collective standstill. something about patience being the father of pragmatism, i suppose - it does help to take such struggles in stride on this side of things.

as i reached the cause of commotion on foot, i neared a group of 20-25 adults huddled together in the middle of the road. to their right, several bedraggled children ground a dirty, empty plastic bottle further into the pebbled dirt with ineffectual blows of the foot. they'd constructed barriers of branch and twig and adorned their humble barricade with a poorly crafted and illegible script of various colors. there were 3-4 maimed and mangled tents awkwardly pitched in the grass along each side of the shoulder, whose temporary inhabitants huddled over thermoses of mate. all in all, they'd managed to blockade a 30 meter stretch of road with nothing more than sticks, stones and the general goodwill of not-passers-by - in addition to their own fiery, if uninspiring, resolution, of course. from what i could tell, they were a landless indigenous group of sorts resorting to moderately more pressing measures after months, if not years and generations, of a condescendingly cold government shoulder. this, at least, was what i picked up from the audio recording played by one of the protesters - a tool he passively played when pressed for information by curious onlookers. apart from this languid display of third-party input, they exerted no further communicative effort; furthermore, it was never even quite clear if they spoke spanish, either. nonetheless, it was an impressive display - however despondent its agents appeared at first (and second) sight: several sadly clad, crestfallen peons and their downtrodden offspring that had managed to peacefully cut off international travel between two repressive, militaristic quasi-republics for three hours on a busy monday morning without the slightest trace of turmoil; a noble tooth and nail attempt, however feeble, not to be swept under the doormat of history's bitter, indifferent breeze.

leaning against a rail that lined the route, a paraguayan chap from my bus approached me to strike up a friendly chat: "and to think that i'll get to tell my friends the state of things in argentina. in paraguay, they'd have pummeled these poor souls into the earth within minutes. you can't block the highway in my country. it's the law," he mused with a shrug. at noon, the protesters peacefully dissembled as previously planned and we all got back into the bus. "what did those bolivians want?!" the woman next to me demanded. "i couldn't quite tell you."

chesterton on the french revolution

It is not a flippancy, it is a very sacred truth, to say that when men really understand
that they are brothers they instantly begin to fight.

merendando con cortazar.

"memories only change the least interesting part of the past"

- Gregorovius

streeting in hues of sabiduria.

when all is said and done, the writing's already on the wall. there's no need to fret over the socio-national origins of public education or the post-war bourgeois role of the state in constituting a perpetual domination of the masses through the manufacture of historiographical heresies by way of chauvinistically fraudulent curriculum; at least, that is, not in buenos aires:

one of the advantages of having a large, unorganized and fractured left is the occasional cynicism it inspires (whether deserved or not) - and the politico-historical imagination, shall we say, that springs from such disillusionment. not that a fractured base is necessary to question given political situations, however pernicious they may be; indeed, only through well-structured opposition can one dismantle - and eventually construct - one's own historiographical haven, be it ideological-communal, regional or national in scope. what advantages, then, can possibly be said to exist in a highly politicized yet simultaneously marginalized political ambiance? the imagination, my friend, the imagination - as well as the nerve.












more than a few people have remarked the extent to which buenos aires street art is overwhelmingly political in nature. perhaps this is somewhat akin to when john adams said that "i must study politics and war so that my sons may study mathematics and philosophy, natural history and naval architecture, in order to give their children the right to study painting, poetry, music, architecture, tapestry and porcelain." (i might scrap the last two for something slightly more gumptious, but that's just me). whereas berlin and new york street artists can busy themselves with expressing the oddities of the modern, pre/post-yuppie condition, the boys in Bs As are must first address the contradictions that escape their politicians (how we could all learn a lesson or two from them). whence such a cosmopolitan vision? i would like to know. the socially, politically, economically and ethnically marginalized in the u.s. do not take to paint as ofter as their counterparts elsewhere; when they do, tis less to expose the geo-social contradictions into which they were born than an immediate yearning for communal attention, or so i suspect. such attention, however, if and when it is obtained, is rarely communal in scope - and when it is, is more often met with contempt than solidarity.

i interviewed an aging former guerrilla and life-long militant yesterday evening who had many an interesting thing to say. amongst a number of gramscian truisms, there were several that stood out in particular: for one, he took great pains to remind me that repressive, bourgeois military rule is always a sign a weakness rather than strength. the real trick is getting people to ignore the root/s (and manifestations!) of their socio-existential malaise as they stare them in the face and consequently not act thereupon (in concerted fashion). none of this is new, of course, as any functionally well-read and semi-critical observer will note. nonetheless, it begs an important question: what is more pernicious - a semi-functioning confederacy of well-oiled, oligarcho-populist spin-doctors whose constituents know, fear and condemn them in the streets - through art if nothing else - or a highly efficient, quasi-democratic though faux-representative ethnocratic political culture that even encourages vandalism, so long as it's neither political nor artistic in scope? at times, it is hard to distinguish between the two (the former ostensibly emblematic of tina-land, the latter of the states). at this point, we only ask that the citizen-artist make the attempt.

una gota con otra se hace aguacero.

yesterday i made my first visit to a buenairense hospital. one can learn a great deal about any campo, county, capital or country from the waiting room of its public health facilities - and not only based on services rendered (or lack thereof). as any astute observer will remark, hospitals betray a remarkable trove of socio-political orientation. indeed, they're a demographic portrait of a given class or society frozen in a single frame: economically, ethnically, aesthetically. we all have an image of the american waiting room - however different its urban, suburban, outer-sprawl or rural variants may prove. (in two words - sadness and obesity - if we're being honest.) though i've yet to studiously wile away the afternoon in a recoleta plastic surgery clinic, one has little trouble picturing their clientèle, either (if not cosmo, perhaps they'll have the new yorker?). to begin with, i made the mistake of seeking medical attention during the mid-morning rush; not that things were hectic - on the contrary - they were almost too calm, considering the number of people seeking care for gunshot wounds and paco overdoses at 10am on a brisk monday in july (ok, bad joke). without trying to speak for the sub-altern, i must say that everyone there seemed to carry themselves with an uncanny dignity; silent without being morose, reserved without being dejected, they diligently waited their turn. from the 'guardia' bureau where you receive your initial slip, you advance to the preliminary line (ventanilla) - whence they schedule you the fatal appointment, often within the same day. luckily enough, i lived within 8-9 stone's throws away and went home to lay in bed, drink mate and pity my poor condition before returning for an afternoon bout with the general practitioner.

a friend from sau paulo visited last week and made a number of interesting remarks about the city i'd only subliminally noted at best. any number of stereotypical balloons are bound to be popped when trading in reputations as inflationary as menem's sense of propriety - and buenos aires is no exception. hailed as the 'paris of the south' or latin america's 'greenwich village,' among other geo-cultural impertinences, some are disappointed when they arrive in the city of good airs only to discover that it neither rains women nor sprouts t-bones from the cracks of the sidewalk pavement (at least my fare saint louis only has to live up to a fervent obsession with baseball, toasted ravioli, frozen custard, blues and high murder rates). that is not to say it isn't sublime, upon slightly deeper reflection, for in many respects it is. judging by the surface, however, is a more delicate affair. for one, as my dear friend remarked, the bustling metropolis is full of old folk. tis true, Bs As must have the highest median age of any capital outside of moscow and minsk - for reasons i've thus far failed to grasp. perhaps it's because the kirchner government reinstated government-backed pensions; maybe it was the junta's systematic near-liquidation of an entire generation in the late 1970's and their would-be 20 somethings that were sterilized or never born - one can only surmise. there was an article in the times a few weeks back focusing on the city's efforts to render itself more senior-friendly (slow news cycle, anyone?). the mayor's spokesman said they were extending the 'go' sign at crosswalks by a full four seconds (and yet the germans still don't take them up on the offer when the blinking red men rears his head) - the rest of the details slip my mind (why not enlarge the numbers on the lotto tickets for those with poor sight - an alternative countermeasure to republican repeals of the death tax, anyone?).

the point of all this is that Bs As is older, quieter and more tranquil than it's often made out to be in popular northamerican and european imagination. some of this is the winter talking. or the fact that i've lacked for either fortune or health for the better part of my stay (which need not be a bad thing, either, if one can learn to properly reflect upon such states of being. read orwell's down and out in paris and london in case you're looking for inspiration). the fact is, for all the politicization of public life and vitriolic memory, the argies are a kind and gentle bunch. racist, yes. authoritarian at times - from what i've heard. arrogant, perhaps a tad in Bs As (though nothing compared to what they've been made out to be. they couldn't hold a candle to parisians if they tried). on the whole, however, at least from the perspective of a young, white, northern male, they're as welcoming as a lukewarm pint on a autumn evening's park bench overlooking the city. that's to say, more friendly, kind and helpful than not. just don't mention your leftist-guerrilla research project in the northern dives. you might just get a reaction.

back to the hospital. a plethora of almost-middle-aged women and their late-adolescent daughters filled the corridors. do men simply not get sick? tis difficult to dictate symptoms, though it has been done (a 'western' female friend of mine once paid a visit to the doc in india, accompanied by a male companion, as is customary in certain places; before she could explain her condition, however, the doctor made very clear that he would only address his male counterpart, giving way to her first three-party, uni-lingual information transfer at point blank.) a low murmor drifted through the air, the rhythmic hullabaloo of which paled in comparison to the average playground chatter of two american joes. i'm always in awe of people that can simply go about their business - or lack thereof - in what appears to be clear and present resignation. is there a thought-attainment brain state to which we mind-fidgeters are not privy? in any case, half the room was in line while the other half conscious-slumbered in the waiting chairs, awaiting their eventual go at the state-ordained healer.

i returned for my scheduled appointment at 4:40, five minutes ahead of schedule. both brain and body had taken a lackadaisically unpleasant beating the two previous weeks and i'd figured i give antibiotics a go. you needn't a prescription for this sort of thing down south, but i couldn't surmise any reasonable dosage upon request and the pharmacist sent me packing to get one from the doc. when i returned to the hospital that afternoon things had quieted down quite a bit. there was a security guard with a sign-in desk posted at the front entrance, to whom i smiled and nodded before contining upstairs to the assigned room on the appointment stub. the second floor hallway was well illuminated by the afternoon sun, and for a moment i was almost glad to be there. in fits of extended fever, one's memory and perceptive abilities have a way of dislodging positive and negative connotations; was this warm, sun-light hallway reminiscent of bouts through the hallowed halls of brittany woods middle school? the nurses' trailer at summer camp in southern missouri? the central prefect's detox station from that one night in paris with ultan the irishman? none of the aforementioned proffer particularly illuminating encounters; why they come to mind, you'll have to ask my psychoanalyst (they say Bs As has got the second most per capita in the world after parigi.) nonetheless, it was not an unwelcoming sight. miniature card board signs protruded from the doors at horizontal angles, indicating each room's number. when i got to mine, the top half of the door, which disconnected from the bottom, was propped open, such that an observer of 3 or more feet could lean into the office to announce his arrival. within in a number of seconds, a small, bearded man approached and asked me for my stub.

"and where are you from?" (he asks in spanish). "the united states," i respond in kind. he writes down my nationality and completes the form. a full 28 seconds later, he grins and offers: "ahh! uniiiiiited staaaates! yes, yes, united states!" "why, yes, sir, that's correct - the united states," i muster, trying not to chuckle. "united staaaates!" he reminds me as he gives me a wink. "vas a seguir por alla - hasta la sala 145.. eeet is, yes.. that way! united states!" i amble 40 feet down the hall to the aforementioned room and look around for a seat. the man follows, this time downright beaming. "vos tenes que tocar a la puerta - like diss! bop bop! you see? pero vos hablas castellano - porque te estoy hablando en ingles? jajaja i do not know! why do we do what we do? solo dios sabe!" he enters, momentarily converses with the doctor before coming back out. "sentate, sentate - just one moment please!" i sit down and pull out my paper as he hurries off back down the hall. before i get a paragraph into the article, he's back with a vengeance in english: "you like to read?" - "why, yes, i tell him." "ah! very good!" and he scurries off toward the doctor's office, some 15 feet to my right. i debate whether or not to look up as he passes me on is way back. i crack. "reading very good!" he assures me, as we meet eyes, and goes back to his office. 46 seconds later, he emerges again, sitting next to me. "where you from?" - "st. louis," i tell him, with an unconvincing plea - how will i ever get this one across? "you know, like, tom sawyer and huckleberry finn? mark twain, paddling down the mississippi?" pronouncing each character's name with the argiest of accents i can muster. "ah, writers!" he shrieks in excitement. "why, yes, we've a few of them where i'm from in the states - t.s. eliot, tennessee williams (mi colegio! mi colegio! i keep repeating)." - "yes, yes, now i see, very, very good!" as he pats me on the knee and takes off for the doctor's office once again. on his way back, we exchange yet another cosmological glance. "cortazar! borges!" he offers. "sabato?" i meekly respond. "sabato! yes! sabato!" as he passes me by. before reaching the door he turns to me with a mischievous grin, as though concealing an eternal secret. "and wah wehminh!" i hesitate, feigning comprehension and solidarity with whatever just came out of his mouth. he doesn't take the bait, however mastered it's become. "walt whiiitman!" he repeats, this time radiating. "oh, i don't know, buddy - i think he's ours!" i reply in kind as the man chuckles and scuttles off down the hall.

when i did finally get around to seeing the doctor that day, he recommended that i boil salt in water, add mint leaves and breathe the vapor with a towel over my head. apart from sexual proverbs and an urban guerrilla tactic or two, that was the first thing my roommate nico had taught me in Bs As. "yes, that's been working, but is there any chance you could tell me the suggested amount of antibiotics a person of my age and weight might require? that's really all i need," i beseeched the portly gentleman. "afraid i can't my son - tisn't my specialty. you'll have to see the ear, throat and nose doc for that." - "can i see him this afternoon by any chance?" - "no, twill have to been first thing in the morn.' come by at 6am and you should be ok." dejected, i gathered my possessions, thanked the man and walked across the street. he'd given me a prescription for a decongestant, just as the sinus was getting better and the head throbs worse. "would you like anything else?" the woman behind the desk politely asked. "uuh, why yes, how about a pack of skittles and some penicillin." - "what dosage?" - "oh, you know, something a growing boy of my size would be able to handle," i proffered in return. moments later i clamored out the door, fenoximetilpenicilina potasica in hand, and wandered into the setting evening sun, mate, medicine and medialunas on my mind...

the backward glance of the historian.

"the reason why we are never able to foretell with certainty the outcome and end of any action is simply that action has no end. the process of a single deed can quite literally endure throughout time until mankind itself has come to an end.

"that deeds possess such an enormous capacity for endurance, superior to every other man-made product, could be a matter of pride if men were able to bear its burden, the burden of irreversibility and unpredictability, from which the action process draws its very strength. that this is impossible, men have always known. they have know that he who acts never quite knows what he is doing, that he always becomes 'guilty' of consequences he never intended or foresaw, that no matter how disastrous and unexpected the consequences of his deed he can never outdo it, that the process he started is never consummated unequivocally in one single deed or event, and that its very meaning never discloses itself to the actor but only to the backward glance of the historian who himself does not act."

- arendt

congressing in the rain.

the good airs of the argentine capital weren't in top form this afternoon, though i'd already arranged to meet a friend at the library of congress around 1pm. we mistakingly made for the 'legislators only' door and had to be redirected down the street to the visitors' entrance, an unassuming and ill-publicized vestibule to the country's most famed halls of power. the english-language guides started an hour earlier than those in castellano, so we decided on the former, despite the fact that my companion was an argie and the guided tour had no other takers. that being said, we still had two hours to kill and i wasn't in the mood for a long conversation or prancing about the neighborhood in the rain. i'd mentioned to my friend there were a couple of newspapers in the archives i'd yet to consult the previous week (what i'd thought was a more than subtle hint that we'd convene at a later hour) - and she not only insisted that i go, but that she tag along as well. i'm certainly not that avant-garde, but bringing a female companion to the archives didn't strike me as the most amusing, progressive or intelligent of afternoon outings. quite the charmer, he must be, the boy who can nonchalantly pull this off. alas, tis but the price one gets to pay for sending mixed signals.

i went to the back desk to retrieve the nearly three foot, 15-pound bound copy of La Prensa from september 1980 - whereto she followed me the entire way. after filling out the paperwork to retrieve the informational tome, the gentleman turned to ask her what document she was looking for. "oh don't worry, i'm with him," she assured the confused onlooker. only mildly embarrassed, i dragged the manual back to the workbench to get started - scholarly assistant not far behind. "i can assure you, my friend, you're going to be bored out of your wits," as i try and insinuate the initial seeds of doubt in the endeavor. "how could you possibly say that? i'm sure it will be a blast!" she reassures me. i begin to take pictures of various articles but am having trouble getting the lens to focus on the fine print. "here, i'll show you how to use the camera!" she offers. "oh, cheers, but i think i'll manage - i've been stuck in this joint for weeks now and am starting to get the hang of it." nothing juicy from september 21st - so i flip past the classifieds to find the next day's front page. "hey, i was in the middle of an article!" ah, yes, how silly of me. "why are you taking a picture of the general?!" oh, just a curiosity, i proffer. "i was thinking of getting his mustache tattered on my abdomen. "oh, i see... why don't you get the whole face?"

an eternity and two hours later, we left the archives and made for Congresso. after a quick coffee con medialunas on the way over, we arrived five minutes late, by which time our english-language tour guide was no where to be found. when she did arrive, it occurred to me that we should've said something to our gracious host, tiger-skin jacket, hot pants and heel-clad charmer though she was - and saved her the effort from speaking the saxon-tongue. despite the occasional mistake, she seemed to be enjoying herself: "dis wood is from idalee, dat marble from france," over and over again, ad nauseam. though our visit was cut rather short by a series of unexpected renovations, we began our tour in the 'pink room,' where evita would entertain a strictly female retinue. a freshly mint coat of deep salmon contrasted the walls with the ovular arrangement of tawny-stained old pink armchairs. upon noticing the individual bronze standalone ashtrays strategically set between each table, i asked if parliamentarians were still able to light up in the chamber. "in the chamber, well, not exactly - that is where they wrote the anti-smoking law two years ago," she chuckled, pointing to the adjacent room. "but in here, why, yes, they still sometimes exercise this habit."

on violence in the arts.

the vehement yearning for violence, so characteristic of some of the best modern creative artists, thinkers, scholars and craftsmen, is a natural reaction of those whom society has tried to cheat of their strength.

- hannah arendt, the human condition

a carnival of outrage.

"it is therefore quite significant, a structural element in the realm of human affairs, that men are unable to forgive what they cannot punish and that they are unable to punish what has turned out to be unforgivable."*

arendt says the only way to temper the morning train of uncertainty leaving the station of uncontrollable human action is through absolution and avowal: forgive them, father, for they know not what they do. ou bien, "si algun alma pecare por equivocacion, entonces tiene que presentar una cabra en su primer ano como ofrenda por el pecado."* que la lectrice choisisse elle-meme. in any case, i've just unwittingly sneezed on the spanish language bible. i know not what i do, to say the least. (and to think my roommates actually had a copy laying around - twas next to trotsky's 'historia de la revolucion rusa,' in case you were wondering). it's amazing what google, mate and a decent library can bring to the workbench of the mind.

where were we, then? concretizing reality through forgiveness and promises. can we promise to forgive? or promise to write our theses? or will uncovering the secrets of the human condition suffice? yesterday i told a friend i'd meet her at 1:00pm in the northern bit of town; two buses and 3/5 of a 13m person metropolis later, i arrived at 2:40. luckily, she forgave me - or so i can only hope. she did buy me lunch (for which i owe you my dear!). on action, ardent writes: "but trespassing is an everyday occurrence which is in the very nature of action's constant establishment of new relationships within a web of relations, and it needs forgiving, dismissing, in order to make it possible for life to go on by constantly releasing men from what they have done unknowingly. only from this constant mutual release from what they do can men remain free agents, only by constant willingness to change their minds and starts again can they be trusted with so great a power as that to begin something new" (216).

shortly thereafter, she reminds us that 'forgiveness is the opposite of vengeance.' nonetheless, i've yet to hear someone posit that "forgiveness is the sweetest joy next to gettin' pussy," as did a certain 'poet' from the 1990's (insert 'revenge' for forgiveness; a shame we don't bare the more sensitive souls in mind.) to speak from experience - i once lived in a rank, dark and dank college-town studio on the third floor of a crumbling midwestern house, under the auspices of a turkish slumlord. what was once a 3-4 bedroom house had been converted into 12 units - three of which were in the basement and occupied by seasonal labourers from south of the rio grande (perhaps they stayed the winter - we didn't cross each others' paths all that often; how easily - and eerily - the anonymity that dominates the 'public' can creep into the private. there was a fair amount of scrubbing to be done upon arrival - for which i'm ever so grateful to family and friend who lent a hand. upon moving out, we gave the place another thorough once-over. to my great dismay, i was still docked the majority of my (parents') deposit for a specious cleaning fee. mind you, i bore a slightly more intemperate soul in those days, and was greatly tempted to take vigilante action. over the years i'd learned the 'i'll report you to the better business bureau' threat from my father - and addressed this in writing to my turkish overlord. reluctantly, if i recall correctly, she parted with $50 - though added another $25 for the space-heater she'd lent me while the furnace had been malfunctioning during exams that winter. by that point, i was thirsty for blood, if not at least spray paint. a la lutte! (if not a cathartic blog entry 4 years later - how's that for petty, postmodern bourgeois revenge).

i had her address - and constantly considered making a foray into the burbs to spray her garage door a visit. one's inner vandal is much more potent at 20 years of age, it goes without saying. (or does that precept only apply to vandals? guilty, i concur.) what message would the angel of vengeance bestow upon our beneficiary of vigilante justice? a nice "amına koyim!" in 'times new roman'? or shall we go with the classic "Bir daha anılmayacaksınız!" in the updated yale typeface?* in any case, the fateful move was never taken. after several questionable decisions one evening in april, i had an 'obstructing government operations' charge pending with the columbia, missouri police department and opted to put the operation on hold. furthermore, i was set to leave the country at the beginning of june for a month-long catholic pilgrimage with my older sister and didn't need draw any more attention to my late-adolescent errs of recent. divine intervention? i'll let my turkish slumlord be the judge of that. in any case, twas an non-act of indecision - and not one of forgiveness.

where were we going? retournons a arendt. "while violence," she writes, "can destroy power, it cannot never become a substitute for it. from this results the by no means infrequent political combination of force and powerlessness, an array of impotent forces that spend themselves, often spectacularly and vehemently but in utter futility, leaving behind neither monuments nor stories, hardly enough memory to enter into history at all" (181). to be sure, here she's referring of the perpetual violence of tyrannical government - that permanent state of terror that leaves room for neither deliberation nor action. a crude, unrefined, restrictive and puerile violence - hegel's somewhat specious asiatic despotism, if you will. but what of fanon's restitutive violence whereby the life of each settler taken in colonial algeria consequently liberated two - that of the oppressed and the oppressor? is this cathartic outburst to be understood as justice, punishment, vengeance or all of the above? vengeance, to be sure, is an act of punishment that needn't necessarily double as a deterrent; rather, in "the form of re-acting against an original trespassing, whereby far from putting an end to the consequences of the first misdeed, everybody remains bound to the process, permitting the chain reaction contained in every action to take its unhindered course." furthermore, arendt maintains, it "encloses both doer and sufferer in the relentless automatism of the action process, which by itself need never come to an end." does vengeance exacerbate the violence of victim-hood ad infinitum by reacting - and thus recreating - the very conditions he or she would have originally sought to avoid? or does the 'original trespass' preordain a perpetual eruption of violence that, once set in motion, can be punished or forgiven but not condemned?

punishment, on the other hand, as both a principle and in distinction to mere vengeance, shares with forgiveness an attempt "to put an end to something that without interference could go on endlessly" (216-7). whereas human punishment goes into effect the moment it is able to exert itself (i.e. once the concomitant infrastructure is in place), the divine punishment of an all-powerful and sovereign God - at least in the christian tradition - is reserved for the end of (one's) days. only the sovereign, it would seem, can freely avenge the original trespass; as regards individual action, forgiveness is proffered as the only healthy, if less tempting, alternative thereto (according to arendt, in any case). Keep in mind she is not denying society the free prerogative to punish; she is, however, denying the individual’s capacity to act both vengefully and within a state of freedom – since the individual can only exert her freedom through the capacity to forgive the original transgression. any other response to physical violence and wrongdoing, she seems to posit, is merely re-active and thus ontologically reactionary – little more than a predictable, though not condonable, rung in the ladder of human madness. but what of he who’d like to keep climbing?

if the individual, that is, the party harmed, cannot avenge himself and remain free, wherein lies the prerogative to do so? can society ever commit an act of vengeance – or must it satisfy itself with an even-handed and dispassionate punishment of offenses? (a social phenomenon that in practice is still hard to fathom.) was carthage burned as an act of punishment, retribution or deterrence? to stress an earlier junction, arendt says that vengeance merely perpetuates a violent causal process, whereas punishment, in similar fashion to forgiveness, seeks to bring it to an end. is there a causal vacuum in which the former can functionally double in the same conclusive fashion as the latter – or is all re-action ontologically impotent insofar as it merely commits the expected? here i am not merely concerned with an eye-for-an-eye, tit-for-tat vengeance as such – but with an exploration of whether vigilante justice can retributively liberate the victim and expiate the original trespassing. if philosopher and society alike deny the victim the prerogative to freely avenge the original offense, what do they make of a third party’s attempt to do so? keep in mind that we are not talking about the state – which dispenses punishment and perhaps even justice, at times - though ostensibly never vengeance. that which is public is to remain dispassionate – a truism that betrays a rather well-known, if less documented, disdain for history and experience as such. enter, then, robbin hood; the revolutionary; the underground vigilante in all his rebellious revelry; by slaying the first offender, can the unrelated avenger expiate, if not alleviate, the violence of the original recipient’s victimhood? such are the questions i seek to address in my forthcoming thesis (for which I’ve managed precious little primary research thus far).



* Arendt, Hannah. The Human Condition, p.217

* Numbers 15:27 (King James): "And if any soul sin through ignorance, then he shall bring a she goat of the first year for a sin offering."

* Fuck you (anonymous); You will be remembered no more. Ezekiel 21:32

unos proverbios argentinos

la sangre derramada no sera negociada.
(we will not negotiate bloodshed.)

con paciencia y salivita un elefante se la metio a la hormiguita.
(with patience and saliva the elephant seduced the ant.)

la gata flora cuando se la ponen gritan y cuando se la sacan lloran.
(the kitty flora screams when you put it in and cries when you take it out.)

un pelo de concha tira mas que una yunta de bueyes.
(one hair of the pussy pulls more than a yoke of oxen.)

porque naranja significa la union entre el hombre y la mujer!

a new addition to the blog will be the quote of the day - depending on the quality of characters i encounter, nico's mood and what i manage to read. the following is from hannah arendt's 'the human condition' which, although a rather dense read, has its lucid moments:

Popular revolt against materially stronger rulers, on the other hand, may engender an almost irresistible power even if it foregoes the use of violence in the face of materially vastly superior forces. To call this 'passive resistance' is certainly an ironic idea; it is one of the most effective and efficient ways of action ever devised, because it cannot be countered by fighting, where their may be defeat or victory, but only by mass slaughter in which even the victor is defeated, cheated of his prize, since nobody can rule over dead men.

the bubbled age of compartmentalized political paranoia is no stranger to the southern realm. oddly enough, it is only after a few pints in a northern Bs As dive and a thorough reading of a truly terrifying article on the contemporary state of american democracy (http://www.thenation.com/article/37165/kabuki-democracy?page=0,0) that i've come to realize this. on the one hand, our culture wars are not that different. hundreds of thousands of orange-clad, banner-waving reactionaries took to the streets the other night to protest an upcoming floor debate on a bill that would potentially legalize both gay marriage and adoption rights (why orange, you wonder? because "naranja significa la union entre el hombre y la mujer." i'm not making that up - apparently winter can have that effect on those accustomed to more sexually enticing summer hues. personally, i would've gone with cafe con leche - but that's just me). true, it was an ambitious first step to take for a country that's yet to legalize abortion (and still apparently far from doing so) - though was still disheartening to see the cameras pan from the raving, flame-emblazoned familial values vanguardia marching against the bill in front of Congreso to the hundred or so supporters thereof meekly disseminated around the Obelisco a half mile away. Hannah Arendt once noted that (political) power is "dependent upon the unreliable and only temporary agreement of wills and intentions." what a frightening permanence such wills occasionally have the tendency to betray. oh, the perennially sweet, sad power of no.

on the other hand, our culture wars are markedly different. conservative argentine political culture does less to romanticise, so as to appropriate, the values of the working class, as is more likely in the case in our fair land. regarding the (north)american 'working class,' of course, we mean white 'working class' - a group whose politico-economic aspirations, it has been said with no dearth of bad faith, are supposed to mirror those of their masters. in argentina, such is not the case. political stability is a fragile affair, and one that would be wrought with further complications should the conservative factions try to enlist the cultural wrath of the underclasses - as been done with its caucasion variant north of the rio grande. argentine conservatism, on the other hand, betrays an odd cosmopolitan-bourgeois, militaresque consensus of catholic solidarity praising a past that never existed and a future that never shall. that in mind, should it really strike us as that odd that our metropolis-dwelling concitoyens not prove the vanguard of progressive tolerance we've come to expect from voters in New York, Boston and San Francisco? Face to face with - and fully benefiting from - the contradictions of modern urbanity, who can blame them? alas, at times the pie only seems to be getting smaller...


if the fear of political implosion in plutocratic democracies is not unmerited - perhaps it could be useful to chart international variations thereof. one the one hand, conservative and liberal (north)american pundits alike, in wildly varying shades of veracity, either augur a forthcoming nationalsozialistische dictatorship and or (somewhat accurately, in my opinion) expose the baffling contradictions of the one already in place (the reader is implored to see the above-mentioned article). in argentina, there is no frantic denunciation of that which lie around the imminent historical corner: according to every party, the worst has already manifest itself. "i was thinking of traveling to entre rios this weekend - you know, get a taste of the argie countryside to ease my urban conscience," i mention to my spanish prof in passing. "tis full of fachos - good luck! you have to realize, my dear, you live in a bubble of light - an island of humanity amidst a sea of unrepentant fascists. they'll skin your poor soul if they can." admittedly, i am exaggerating - though she's not entirely mistaken. rather than insinuate 'locking and loading' a la palin to resist obama's snakelike stranglehold on the american soul, noted argentine journalists still openly advocate military coups against the leftist kirchner government (here's to you, grondona). eventually, you begin to sympathize with her conviction that we bold 'argonauts of the ideal' are perpetually encircled by legions of reactionaries ready to pounce at any moment.

here, conspiracies, blanket denunciations and genuine mistrust exist on an altogether different scale. "80 percent of robberies, burglaries and brake-ins are conducted by - or linked back to - the police," my friend Dario, a very intelligent and studious young political scientist, tells me. "when pablo sanchez refused to keep robbing at their behest, he was disappeared." i do not deny the darker doings of the argentine security forces - though do find this systematically unsophisticated pillaging of the populous a tad far-fetched. but don't get me wrong, little in life is more fun than simplifying the universe into little prettily-packaged cup-cakes of quantifiable misinformation; indeed, the bulk of my worldly convictions were born of this pastime. that being said, whereas mine usually intended to be a coy, if not slightly obnoxious, caricature of more candid attempts to document reality, in argentina the art has been taken to new extremes - and not always by well-intentioned conspiracies from the Left. "90% of the students at the UBA are foreigners (that is, negros)," nico's facho aunt from entre rios reminded us one night over dinner (maybe my spanish prof was onto something!). "and 60% of argentina is jewish."

in any case, the moral of the story is that this trench-like political mentality - the fear of ideological engulfment from every possible front - is rampant and all-encompassing amongst the educated (that is, leftist), moneyed and middle class catholic (that is, rightist) factions. tis a peculiar suspicion, a primal pessimism if you will, that i've only encountered amongst the most fervent of american leftists; generally, the latter's countryfolk, however politically involved they may be, tend to betray an almost-clumsy optimism in the efficacy of their efforts (we won't speak of the politically apathetic, disenchanted or disenfranchised for the time being) - a spring of belief whose source, while dwindling as of late, has not been irreparably depleted, i should hope.

el antitesis nordico-mediterraneano

since 'national stereotypes' are on the family menu this week, i won't be one to miss an opportunity. that being said, though there's precious little material more fun than national finger-wagging, that doesn't preclude us from looking further into the magician's hat for old, if not beloved, tricks. the nation, as every good grad student knows, is but an imagined community - a 17th century trojan horse of traveling salesmen, an 18th century swindle to shore up a budding bourgeoisie, a 19th century scour upon the international labour movement. several chatanooga-bound train stops shy of civilizational skirmishes, however, there lies a fading formality of cosmo-provincialism: the time-tested prequel to 'when mediterranean harry met nordic sally' (i'll let the ACLU and Anti-Defamation League settle that one). yes, we're going there - from the dasein of the deutsch dandy to the cogitations of the catalonian caper; au dela de la critique weberienne to the original north-south divide; what makes dutch parliamentarians ride their bike to see their mistress, whereas italians might bring a cousin-clad motorcade; why the visigoths were able to bypass roman import quotas on alcohol, tobacco and firearms with rapacious, albeit pre-modern, efficacy. bien, perhaps not quite that far - but you get the point.

greek financial crises aside, the new world usually provides an ample supply of civilizational fodder to the age-old debate surrounding 'cultural variations' within 'euro-white civilization' - and argentina is by no means an exception. if it's 'popular' in some sense to have irish blood in the U.S. (a trend that i've been told is rather bothersome for those actually born in eire), it's positively 4/5 up the 'respectable' fence of humanity in argentina. not that it's in any way disrespectable in north america - it merely means you can write, fight, govern/police, booze and be a bigot - and that you're probably mobbing deep. in argentina, it just means you're northernish-white, linguistically-hegemonic and not english - which, however unmerited, gives you unspoken advantages in this part of the world. but getting back to the point of our discussion - how argies, or at a very minimum my spanish prof, define the geo-cultural divide.

bibi tonnelier is a character if ever i've met one. at the ripe old age of 21 she set out on a 17-year self-imposed exile to switzerland, spain and greece to avert what she (somewhat) accurately predicted would be menem's neo-liberal inferno that first came to power in 1990. with the kirchners in office, however, she could finally return to her native land of facho's (i'll elaborate momentarily) - and enjoy the 'petty bourgeois' comforts of a proletarian wage teaching english to various krauts and yanks downtown. her grandfather originally fled from pas de calais, in the north of france, whence he'd dodged the great war draft and made off like a central american dictator on his way to miami - albeit minus the bilingual parrots, family caskets and cachets of cash-money. nonetheless, la patrie wasn't having any of that and, in turn, shipped his 16-year old brother off to the front - an act the younger frere would never forgive. years later, the latter would follow the former as far as uruguay in a fit of fratricidal rage; unsuccessful in his first fatal attempt, he took his own life a year later in cordoba. an familiar ode to modernity, i know. bibi, however, wouldn't learn any of this until well into adulthood, when - after making a misguided attempt to apply for french citizenship - her application was rejected for consanguineous treachery nearly a hundred years after the fact. gaullic memory, it shall be noted, apparently doesn't fade as fast as in our culturally miscegenatious new world republics. but back to the lesson at hand.

from the little i've seen thus far, argentine cinema is generally quite good, if not subtly despondent. that being said, the majority of good pictures outside (and within) the US usually are (call me a doleful downer - it's true. if the americans have one talent, it's their ability to give the cinematic impression that the state of the world is generally quite good - which, as we all know...). in any case, i asked her why this was. "in general, we're a very meloncholic people." this is not the first impression one has of argentines (nor the intermediary, nor the last, for that matter - if such a thing exists). well fed and read? it would appear at first sight. vane? not nearly to the extent that outsiders claim they are (which just goes to show just what kind of neighborhoods even the relatively indigent international traveler can afford to live in here). extremely class-conscious? amongst the educated, most certainly. a tad facho at times? in the running. but melancholic? i wouldn't have said so. bibi continued: "all mediterranean peoples are melancholic; the argentine merely expresses it with more grace and a keener sense of separation." true, i would rather pay my dues to the temple of sadness at her aegean, rather than patagonian, outpost. that being said, the generalization, whose form i usually relish, still doesn't seem to fit. "let me elaborate," she assured me, "on the dichotomous value system that separates the nordic from the mediterranean entity:"

el sistema de valores nordico se base en la dicotomia "deber-culpa," en tanto el sistema mediterraneo se basa en la antitesis "honor-verguenza." por ende la actitud de las personas frente a la vida difiere muchisimo.

how so? the reader is curious to know. though bibi's a fabulous teacher, she had a tendency to arrive 35-45 minutes late each day. seeing as my opportunity cost of each three-hour lesson was the equivalent of a week's worth of groceries (or, consequently, two lobster dinners - or - twenty three packs of cigarettes - or - thirty five liters of quilmes, you get the point), i took it upon myself to mention that we try and make up for lost time the following week. "on the one hand," she reminded me, "nordics tend to be consumed by notions of duty and guilt. schedules, times, meetings, appointments - they are the superstructure of nordic efficacy-worship. mediterraneans, on the other hand, live through the antithesis of honor and shame and are infinitely more concerned with quality over quantity. a nordic student, for example, might get his panties in a bunch over missing several minutes of an hours-long class. mediterraneans, however, are more concerned with embodying a general paradigm of qualitative excellence. we do not fret over small beer but, rather, remain intimately concerned with the bigger picture. i will not give you a reading assignment and then sit there and watch you read it. what a complete and utter waste of time." though i was mildly taken aback, you have to give her credit. to arrive 45 minutes late to a three hour lesson two days in a row and then call you a nordic time-worshipping rule-monger in a one-on-one conversation course is an impressive feat. and not that we don't get along - we're the best of mates. a cultural difference i both admit and even reluctantly envy. if only i wasn't paying for it.

Politica. Economica. Sociedad. Mundo. Deportes.

such was the order on the bottom of the television screen. from politics to economics, we move onto more important matters - from examining the state of contemporary society to covering world affairs. only once we've reached a truly global perspective, however, can we proceed to sports. i'm desperately trying to recall the order in which the newscast went back home, but to no avail. it's been years since i lived with a television and in the 'pick-and-choose' media age that simply caters to our own selective mediatric biases, it is easy to lose sight of the mediating power of order. in austria, for example, the day's skiing results were the first thing to appear on screen - well before the latest from the political spectrum. when the l.d.g - r.e.k mob allegiance begins its uprising, we'll proffer the latest in sour-gummie engineering before news from the front unsettles early evening appetites.

argentines call bean bags 'poofs' and bogies 'poochos.' when nico speaks of love (in english), his "whole world turns pink." whenever nico speaks in english, the world of 1230 saavedra becomes an outrageously funnier place. "love," he reminds his amante, "is an invention of the mind. except for mine is a communism love - not a capitalism love. you cannot understand communism love from a capitalism vision." the night progressed in concomitance with his romantic revelations; by ten oclock, he was reordering the romantic wheel: "first, of course, are you, my dear laura (his companion and our roommate), "followed by maradona, revolution and, finally, drugs." within seconds, however, his forehead cringed in reflection. "no, i'm sorry, my dearest. first, maradona, then you, revolution and drugs." by midnight he had us all singing along to "oh i love your tits on winter." the drugs, of course, were but an decorous prop. as far as i know, he doesn't smoke beyond tobacco and can hold his drink for the most part. indeed, nico is an intelligent, hard-working and courageously funny man. he is also an ardent marxist revolutionary with an agenda. something happens, however, when he begins to speak english.

if all language is ideology, then despite his political affinities and projects, nico's conception of our mother tongue must be a pleasant, if not at times slightly vulgar, one. once he gets cracking in anglosaxon-speak, he cannot seem to stop. of course, when navigating your way in a foreign tongue, the best way to get cracking is by bringing up the obvious. "what do you think about the malvinas war" is always a interesting one in this part of the world. "what becomes of vegans in argentina" is another? after posing the latter i was met with a fury of disgruntling groans of disgust. "first we fuck them then we kill them.. and then we fuck them again." how, when said with a perfect blend of linguistic naiveté, ignorance and audacity, can such statements produce such a hallucinogenic humour? it may sound absurd at the time of writing this, though i assure you - it 'seemed like a good idea at the time.' somehow we stumbled upon circumcision, nico being convinced that marianna was in love with a jewish man, to which she replied, "impossible. i take either all or nothing." i told them that the majority of americans were circumcised as well. after learning of the hygienic powers thereof, he concludes: "it is true, if you don't shower enough, you generate some cheese." when later pressed on his choice of words, he reminded us that his english was "latin american english. the revolutionary english. the english that talk fidel and che. when are you going to get a phone, evan?! imagine we are starting the revolution - how do i reach you?"

the man, as the reader can clearly see, is more than down for the cause. "how much do you love the revolution?" we ask him. "i love it more than popcorns in USA."

the clock is ticking and we've all got a big day ahead of us, not to mention the essay i'd yet to write on the 'role of the intellectual' in latin america (yes, i'm that twat). the strumming wound down and several roommates made for their sleeping quarters at a quarter past 1. we would need to conserve our festive forces for the morrow's celebration. around 1:30, he put the icing on the evening's cake: "tomorrow we're going to throw the house out of the window. i am shakespeare."