Argentine Family Singing Luna Tucumana

Family Reunion

My mom greets a cousin she hasn't seen since her last time in Argentina, before I was born.

On Saturday, we had a big family reunion at my grandmother’s sister's house. It was great to see my mom and family smile as much as they did. The evening climaxed with everyone singing Argentine songs, including "Luna Tucumana" by folk legend Mercedes Sosa. My mom knew the words to the songs. She really felt at home. I, remember hearing the song at the Mercedes Sosa concert (the last concert performed at Teatro Colón, where my grandparents used to go on dates, before it closes for a few years for renovations). I of course, didn’t know the words.

Later that night, I ran into some Pennsylvanians at a bar and did a little Cleveland-Pittsburg football rivalry thing. It was nice getting to act out a script with people I don’t know. Granted, I could care less about football, but it was nice for a moment.

Volunteering

At volunteer English teaching, a couple of French women and I taught a few lessons on numbers in English in a Comedor (soupt kitchen/community center type thing) in Zona Sur of Gran Buenos Aires. The kids were kind of silly, generally sweet and wanted to learn something. We had fun. It felt good to be teaching again. A few were syblings and they hit each other when they got frustrated. I may not have the imperative tense down, but the "teacher look" transcends all languages.

My mom's old house

So my mom arrived in Buenos Aires on Wednesday. She hasn’t been here since before I was born. We visited the house that she lived in until she left Argentina at 16 in 1966. While anticipating her trip, my mom dreamt at night about entering her house, but didn’t expect to do so because her sister didn’t have luck with the residents who lived there a few years ago. Adina rang the bell anyway. Luckily, the house was being worked on. A painter let us come in and look around. I saw the bedroom my mom shared with her sister, the rooms where they lived (confined to one floor), the backyard etc. My mom told me that her father (who was and is a doctor) decided to leave Argentina in order to pursue greater economic opportunity. I haven’t been in the houses they lived in when they first got to the U.S., but the house my grandfather currently lives in is certainly much bigger than this one. We were all very, very happy to have this opportunity.

Documentaries make life better

I couldn’t help but rent “24 hour Party People” (which isn't actually a documentary, but historical fiction), as any semi-responsible student of the social sciences must understand the historical context of his or her cultural experiences. While I was being born in 1982, New Order record sales funded the legendary Haçienda nightclub in Manchester as the Argentine military junta tried unsuccessfully to wrest the Islas Malvinas from British control. As I saw many Malvinas-era Argentines doing in the documentary “Republica Perdida”, fans chanted “Argentina” before the New Order concert on Saturday. By the end of the show, they were chanting “New Order”.

Rock n' Roll - 1
Dictatorships - 0

My mom arrives soon.

Manchester comes to Buenos Aires

Last Saturday, I went to Personalfest, a very popular annual music festival here in Buenos Aires. I started at the main stage with Ian Brown of the Stone Roses and then strolled to the second stage for NYC's the Bravery. There is nothing like a tight pristine suit, wry pretentious lyrics (“Your words are like knifes in my ear”) and inflated egos to remind me of home (one of them, at least). My sister and I passed empathetic glances while a band member tried to thank the audience in Spanish.

As we returned to the main stage for New Order while the Bravery was still playing, my sister said “I hope they play that song about that about that soldier who wants to see his family." She got her wish. Lead singer Bernard Sumner (who turned 50 this year and dressed humbly for a rock star) announced that “Love Vigilantes” is a “vehimently anti-war song”.

Near the end of the show, a band member declared “Ian Curtis lives” before playing “Atmosphere” by Joy Division during the encore (after Joy Division lead singer Ian Curtis hanged himself, the remaining members formed New Order). I don’t know if it is just me, but “Love Vigilantes” always reminded me of “Atmosphere”. Sumner didn’t try to speak Spanish and he rightly assumed that Argentine fans would eagerly and aptly accept his invitation to sing along to the main verse of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”. Perhaps my expectations for New Orders synth super hits were too high, perhaps those songs depend too much on production or perhaps darkness is just beautiful; for me, the Joy Division songs stole the show.

Come On Pilgrim

COMING SOON: reports from my adventures with international comic book writers and artists as well as some vignettes of local youth culture.

Rush of Blood to the Head

Traveling through the mountainous Cuyo region of Western Argentina (focusing on San Luis and Mendoza provinces), Abe and I conquered air, land and water.

Caverna de Las Brujas (Cave of the Witches). Outside of Malargue, Mendoza.

Rafting in Rio Atuel. Valle Grande, outside of San Rafael, Mendoza.





Rappelling. Valle Grande.




Horse-back riding. Valle Grande.






"Just put on this gear and run down the mountain until you fly."
Paragliding in Merlo, San Luis.






"Do you like Adrenaline?" the instructor Juan asked me.
"Si" I answered.
Next thing I knew, we were spinning. Really fast.






Relaxing in Parque San Martin in the city of Mendoza.

I met Cristian Mallea of La Productora independent publishing collective, right, at this event sponsored by the government of the city of Mendoza. He invited me to an event at a local comic store later that day and eventually to a convention in Montevideo, Uruguay.

Ancient Melodies of the Future

INCALLACTA RUINS

The thing I loved the most about Bolivia was the fact that while the reach of Western culture was certainly palpable, so was the presence of indigenous Andean cultures. Conquered by the Incas in the 15^th and 16^th centuries, the Bolivian altiplano in which Cochabamba lies served as the breadbasket for the Inca empire. Today, most Bolivians identify as at least partially indigenous.

I tasted Andean culture in various venues. Visiting a local school [below], I saw kids perform traditional dances and act out plays organized by Foundation for Sustainable Development volunteer Liz Shriver. I didn’t need any lessons beforehand when people invited me to dance to Andean panpipes at a party. At a concert of the Cochabambino folkloric band called Los Kjarkas, I clapped to beat with the rest of the audience so hard that my hands hurt by the end of the show. The audience also sang along in Spanish and in Quechua, the language of the Incas. In a mix of European and traditional culture at the Festival de la Virgen de Urkupiña [above right], troupes from all over the country played horns and danced in costumes.

Last January, Bolivia elected their first indigenous (specifically Aymara) president, Evo Morales of the party MAS, Moviemento al Socialismo. Fulfilling a campaign promise to divert local resources towards helping the nation’s large poor population, Evo irked a few nations and impressed others when he nationalized Bolivia’s natural gas on May 1. After spending a month in the most indigenous nation in South America, I went to the least indigenous one.

Hello Cruel World

NURSING A BLOODY NOSE AND
CHEWING COCA LEAVES IN UYUNNI

The first stop on my journey was Cochabamba, Bolivia. Cochabamba is the 3^rd largest city in the poorest nation in South American. I chose Cochabamba because my friend Rebecca Kirchheimer was the second in command at the Foundation for Sustainable Development there . I lived as her roommate for the month of August and left the city for an excursion to Uyuni, where I saw enormous salt flats and to Inca ruins at Incacallacta. It certainly took my body some time to adjust to the high altitude and dry air. I got headaches and nose bleeds every day when I first arrived. As the locals do, I tried drinking Coca tea and chewed on Coca leaves to alleviate the symptoms.

DALI

Living abroad made me think about what it means to be American. After losing at a Bolivian dice game one night at Dalí, a Bolivian friend of mine beat me at poker. Losing at an American game irked me. After salsa lessons with some European friends of mine from my Spanish school, we all went bowling. At the bowling alley, I did a better job of representing my country.

At bowling, I was the only one who cheered vociferously when people got strikes and I got a higher score than anybody else. I cheered for myself too. After the game, a Swiss girl named Mirjam asked me “Why do you have so much pride for the United States?” She couldn’t piece together patriotism with the sharp criticisms of the Bush administration that I also expressed. In Europe, she associates national pride with the right-wing. “I love American superheroes, rock music,” I shared my gut response. “There are also some political traditions that I’m fond of.” I continued my list in writing the next morning on the bus to class.

On the way to Dalí after watching a documentary on the indigenous Guaraní, a Bolivian friend named Jorge once asked me “Do you think that the people who slaughtered the natives of North America went to Hell?” “I don’t believe in Hell”, I answered.

Different Class

Last summer, I had the pleasure of directing the first
sessions of the FivePoints academic program at
Union College.  Pictures from our first summer will
soon be available on the online program catalogue. I've
been working via internet to build on the program
description in the old catalogue to better reflect our
approach.  If you click on the link now, you will see our
first catalogue with pictures borrowed from related
programs and our first set of course offerings.  Our
course selection will be modified for next
summer, including the addition of a Comics and Graphic
Novels class, which, of course, I am very excited about. 

One of my staff members gave me the song below on a mix CD.  
The lyrics are kind of corny, but I think they speak to some
of our goals.  Mixing elements of Bob Dylan and Nirvana, 19
year old Willy Mason took the indie world by storm with the
following song:

I wanna be better than oxygen
So you can breathe when you're drowning and weak in the knees
I wanna speak louder than Ritalin
For all the children who think that they've got a disease
I wanna be cooler than t.v.
For all the kids that are wondering what they are going to be

We can be stronger than bombs
If you're singing along and you know that you really believe
We can be richer than industry
As long as we know that there's things that we don't really need
We can speak louder than ignorance
Cause we speak in silence every time our eyes meet.

On and on, and on, and on it goes
The world it just keeps spinning
Until i'm dizzy, time to breathe
So close my eyes and start again anew.

FROM "OXYGEN" BY WILLY MASON