paperback unicorns

As it turns out, I have had a change of pace in my dreams. The other night, amidst other, more confusing things, I dreamed that I’d found the fourth volume of Victoria’s autobiography in a used bookstore in Buenos Aires. And dreams do come true! Except the difference between Brazilian dreams and Argentine dreams is that yes, Caetano Veloso really did write a column about you, but no, the bearded guy in the used bookstore won’t sell you the fourth volume because it would break up his “set” of 5, even though it’s not even the full set, jerk.

It would have been the perfect way to start off the day. I was rambling around Barrio Norte looking for souvenirs and decided on a whim to go into a promising-looking used bookstore. I had another book in mind — no dice — but as I was leaving, almost as a tic, I asked if they had any volumes of Victoria’s autobiography. “Yes,” the guy said in a very definitive way, and disappeared behind a bookshelf.

He reappeared with an enormous stack of volumes and began spreading them out across the table. There must have been four copies of the first volume, three of the second, four of the fifth, and a couple of the fourth. “I’m looking for the fourth and the sixth,” I said hopefully. “The sixth? Olvidate. You can’t find it anymore, it’s too rare.” I wasn’t sure whether to take this as a challenge or not, but at least I was going to have my dreams come true and buy the fourth right now. And then he started stacking the books.

metropolitan cathedral

I cannot be the only person who finds this funny.

speedwalking in the gran aldea

Buenos Aires makes me feel slow. I’ve always been a pretty fast walker, perhaps in part due to an undiscriminating competitive streak; at Princeton I’m probably slightly hastier than the average, and in Rio, not counting Centro at rush hour, I often found myself consciously slowing my roll so as not to outstrip everyone on the sidewalk (including dawdling friends). But in Buenos Aires, I am, I confess, with a furtive tear, below average. Porteños (again, taking out the extremes, which include the old folks dragging their shopping trolleys and strategically blocking the entire width of the sidewalk) stride with a brusque purpose that often leaves me hugging the wall, trying not to get in their way.

This, I realized the other day, was reminding me of an episode of one of my favorite radio shows, Radiolab. In an segment from a couple years ago, Jad and Robert talk with a psychology professor, Bob Levine, who’s conducted studies in an effort to pin down what it is, precisely, that gives cities a unique character. Levine thinks the heart of the issue is time — the rhythm of each city. How fast people talk, how fast transactions are conducted, and, most crucially, how fast people walk. You can hear the segment here; the interview with Levine starts at about 5:00 in. Radiolab did their own set of experiments, asking listeners around the world to see how long it takes the locals in a given city’s downtown to cover 60 feet. Buenos Aires, you can hear, clocks in at 12.13 seconds (for comparison, the slowest city was Buchanan, Liberia, at 21 seconds, and the fastest city, Dublin, at 10.4).

Levine writes elsewhere that walking speed can be seen as a measure of the city’s “busyness.”

a-maying

Happy May Day, everyone! No Maypole, no flower crowns, but plenty of people in the Plaza de Mayo. The rhetoric was less than inspired, I have to say; I couldn’t suppress a wave of skepticism at calls for the “unidad de todos los pueblos contra el capital” when todos los pueblos can’t even agree on Pepsi or Coke.

que país é esse?

Went to see the exhibition of excerpts from Ricardo Piglia’s diaries and rued, once again, not having taken a course with him freshman year, while I had the chance. Outside, on the corner of Santa Fe and Paraná, a little kid was moonwalking along the sidewalk while his mother window-shopped. He wasn’t bad.

Sometimes, when I’m out headed someplace, I play a game: see how long I can go before seeing something that identifies Buenos Aires as Buenos Aires. It started when I was writing something in my notebook one afternoon and looked up distractedly to see a sign in English — Firestone Tires, or something — and then another, and another, and another, until it seemed like a remote possibility that I had slipped sideways through the fabric of the universe into another place entirely. Starbucks, baroque façades, restaurants advertising “DELIVERY,” familiar store brands; I could be in any number of cities, until I see a plaque commemorating the desaparecidos or a billboard addressing “vos.” The odd illusion often doesn’t last long, and is completely unsustainable in some of the older and crumblier parts of the city. Still, it’s good for a little dose of extrañamiento now and then.

campeão no exílio

On the eve of the game, I trekked out to the Boteco do Brasil to see if they’d be showing the game (because they weren’t picking up the phone, natch). It wasn’t the first time they’d fielded the question. The place is only a few months old, a little hole in the wall a couple kilometers down Av. Cordoba, but Brazilians and Brazil-loving Argentines have been packing it since it opened its doors. The walls are covered with the sort of art you’d expect, there’s coxinhas and pão de queijo à beça, and they have fairly regular shows, sooo the appeal is pretty obvious. And homesick Brazilians have been coming to the Boteco every Sunday in hopes of catching some football from the homeland. “We’re right between two antennae,” the carioca cook explained, “so we can’t pick up any Brazilian channels.” Apparently people come in with their jerseys in hand every Sunday and have to be turned away.

So this was yet another game that I watched in the chill of the apartment, just me yelling at my laptop screen and having periodic heart attacks when the signal dropped. Vasco was the favorite coming in, but there’s a strange historical imbalance when you look at Botafogo-Vasco games, as the commentators kept pointing out — across all games, Vasco has won the majority, something like 60%, but when it comes to title-deciding matches, Botafogo has won all but one. What’s the matter, Portugal, where’s your follow-through?

sweater weather

When I was in third grade, we almost moved to Palo Alto; a somber kid, I remember being revolted by the 72-degree constancy of the place. “I want seasons!” I objected. And either because of how moving and poetic my argument was, or maybe because of ridiculous real estate prices, we ended up staying in the occasionally sunny, occasionally snowy shadow of the Blue Ridge. Winter was my favorite season; I scorned gloves in snowball fights and concocted elaborate snow-summoning rituals.  I still take deep and abiding pleasure in making fun of the emotional disturbance Brazilians undergo when the temperature falls below 68 degrees. But something’s happened.

I expected to miss the northern seasons when I went to Brazil. But no: the meridional winter was gorgeous with its pale sunlight, spring with the beaches filling up and my sunburns becoming more frequent, and summer where the cold ocean — an unpardonable flaw, if you ask a Recife native — becomes a blessing. Once I naturalized the habit of applying sunscreen multiple times a day, every day, if I wanted to leave the house, I started swinging to the other end of the spectrum. On one of my last days in December, I went to a friend’s apartment to finish up an editing project. The fan was only weak compensation for summer’s approach, and she made some comment about how awful the month was. I looked at her with surprise: I’d come down the beach on my bike, reveling in the 80-something-degree glare. When I dragged my feet back to the Northern Hemisphere for Christmas, I spent most of the time complaining about the chill (although under my breath when Brazilians were around).

In any case, fall has come as an unpleasant, unreal surprise in Buenos Aires.

happy birthday to my favorite monkeys

I haven’t seen a single monkey in Argentina so far, but here’s one from Pão de Açúcar to tide us over until I get back. Save me some birthday cake, bigguns!

the italians and the deaf

Walking down Pueyrredón on the way to UBA, catch sight of a couple chatting animatedly.

First thought: Jesus, it really is true that the Argentines have a strong Italian influence, those two are gesticulating like crazy.
Second thought: Oh.
Third thought: That’s sign language, isn’t it.

in the witching hour

Infinite Evitas. Sweet dreams.