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.