The Alaska Shorts at noon was a great four film program. All the films were technically well made and all told important stories. I thought I'd given up on staying up late to post about the festival, but I feel compelled.
I'm going to focus on True Colors - Film maker Brad Hillwig said he wanted to do a film about Anchorage having the most diverse schools in the country. He focused on Bartlett High School, its diversity, how the school works to make that diversity part of the curriculum, and highlighted two of the outstanding students - a Filipino/Pacific Islander football player and the daughter of an African, Muslim immigrant. It was an inspiring film in lots of ways. One of the students - Oumi - was there which was exciting too.
There were film makers representing all the films there
The afternoon and evening films at the Museum were also good to outstanding. Below is Tora Johanna Turøy again, talking festival director Ida Myklebost after her film was shown at the museum.
Ariel: Back To Buenos Aires was amazing. It was beautifully filmed - with the tango scenes and the Buenos Aires street scenes not just adding color but meaningfully adding to the story. A few times the camera goes around and around the subjects in a way that is beautiful and heightens the emotional pitch of the scenes.
The content is powerful! A sister and brother in their 30s, fly to Argentina where they were born. The older sister, on the plane, tells her brother she suspects he was adopted because she doesn't remember her mom being pregnant with him. Anyone who know the history of Argentina will quickly figure out where this is leading.
A powerful film, made even more powerful by the cinematography and editing so good you don't even think about it.
I'm sure this will be one of the top films at the festival and they will show the award winning films again the week after the festival. Be sure to see it!!
Citizen Sleuth was also interesting. A film maker making a film about a Crime podcaster. We see a sincere podcaster digging deep into a car accident death that she suspects was murder.
"'Citizen Sleuth' is a darkly funny, engaging, and thrilling documentary about a true crime podcast that has all the fascinating twists and turns of true crime, while flipping the script and focusing on the voice behind the podcast. The documentary chronicles not a tragic death, but the rise and fall of a podcast dedicated to it, and the complicated ways its host became trapped in her own narrative."
This is 82 minutes, so there should be plenty of time to get to the Museum for the rest of the films starting at 5pm.
"ARIEL BACK TO BUENOS AIRES follows the tumultuous siblings Davie and Diana Vega as they return to Argentina, country of their birth and learn to dance tango. They uncover secrets about their family history that call into question everything they hold to be true, but that free Davie from his existential misery. A story of how the past holds us in its embrace – only by engaging with it can we find freedom. A lacerating love letter to the city of Buenos Aires."
The website says it is also streaming on Apple TV. It's won a number of awards at film festivals this year.
There are ways to put a little low cost luxury into your cocoons until we become post COVID-19 butterflies. Instead of whining about what you don't have.
We started the day off with an out of the ordinary (for us) breakfast. It was wonderful. It's not hard to do. But if you don't have a waffle iron, you can make pancakes or French toast.
And in these months of never-ending hand washing, get some really nice soap. When we cleaned out my mothers house after she died, we found lots of wonderful soap.
We still have a few bars left.
On top is an I. Magnum French milled bar. It smells so good, I may just keep it for sniffing now and then. In the middle is Origins Lime and Geranium, and then the Yardley April violets. The other three are soaps we bought in the San Telmo weekend market last summer in Buenos Aires. A husband and wife make the soap, under the name Paskarito. These are glycerin based soaps.
The price of many good soaps is less than what many people pay for a coffee these days, and a soap can last you several weeks or more. For example
I went back and found this picture at the market where we bought the soaps. She's mixing ingredients here. (I also saw how many pictures I took that never got to the blog!)
And you can also go pull books off the shelves and read. All those books you've never gotten too. Or the ones you've promised yourself to read again. And magazines too. The only one I intentionally subscribe to isThe Sun. There's always one big interview (this month with Randy Blazak on why white supremacy persists), short stories, poems, a readers write section (a different topic each month and this month is 'shortcuts'). And there are black and white photos, "Sunbeams" (quotes on a selected topic, which this month seems to be 'masculinity'). I'm
"The American ideal of masculinity . . . has created cowboys and Indians, good guys and bad guys, punks and studs, tough guys and softies, butch and faggot, black and white. It is an ideal so paralytically infantile that it is virtually forbidden - as an unpatriotic act - that the American boy evolve into the complexity of manhood" - James Baldwin
"I do like men who come out frankly and own that they are not gods." - Louisa May Alcott, Jo's Boys
"There be certain times in a young man's life when, through great sorrow or sin, all the boy in him is burnt and seared away so that he passes at one step to the more sorrowful state of manhood." Rudyard Kipling, "The Dream of Duncan Parrenness"
I've only just started Overstory by Richard Powers. I love the The Echo Maker which had sandhill cranes as an integral physical and metaphorical role in the book. I'm not too far into Overstory but it's clearly about the importance of trees to humans and to the earth.
And for those of you who have little ones home with you, challenge their curiosity. Make learning an adventure. There's so much available online that even with the libraries closed, there's lots to do. For example:
[This post is not what you were expecting. Nor me. It began as a way to step back and remind folks that there's more than US and UK politics happening in the world. While we were in Argentina this summer we learned a little about their presidential elections. I thought I'd offer bit of Argentine politics for folks. That led me to the political trap video that's near the bottom, which is worth a post all of its own. It's very catchy, even without understanding the lyrics. Be sure to watch it. Will this sort of thing be part of the US election in 2020? I've also added the lyrics and a translation.]
I don't see much coverage of the Argentine presidential election this October. On our visit in June and July people all agreed they were being squeezed by high inflation and life was getting harder. Argentina is a country with a history much longer than the US and in the early 1900s was one of the wealthiest in the world. People are sophisticated. They have free health care and university education. Current President Macri has imposed harsh economic restrictions. People we talked to were not shy in voicing their opinions for one candidate or the other.
"Argentina’s first-round vote on October 27 will see the election of president and vice president, and nearly half of congressional seats (130 deputies and 24 senators). While President Mauricio Macri is in the running for a second term, Argentines chose who else will appear on the ballot in the August 11 primary elections, known as the PASO. The main obstacles to the pro-business president of the Together for Change coalition are Argentina’s economic recession and a peronist front. He polls behind center-left Alberto Fernández, who's running mate is former President Cristina Fernández de Kirchner.
Some 33 million Argentines are eligible to cast the compulsory vote, which will go on to a November runoff if none of the presidential candidates wins at least 45 percent, or 40 percent with a 10-point margin over the runner-up."
"On September 29 the Argentine province of Mendoza will elect its governor and renew one-half of its bicameral legislature. Mendoza is Argentina’s fifth most populous province, and one of only five provinces (out of 24) currently governed by a member of President Mauricio Macri’s Together for Change alliance. A Together for Change victory in Mendoza would provide a glimmer of optimism for a dignified loss by Macri in the October 27 presidential election against Peronist Alberto Fernández (and against Fernández’s vice presidential nominee, former president Cristina Fernández de Kirchner) as well as provide hope for some Together for Change down ballot success in congressional races. In contrast, a defeat would foreshadow a potential shellacking on October 27 and demoralize the Together for Change forces even more than they already are. . ."
This article was written by "Mark P. Jones[who] is the Joseph D. Jamail Chair in Latin American Studies and the Director of the Center for Energy Studies’ Argentina Program at Rice University’s James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy."
That, of course, gives me a chance to post some Mendoza pictures from last summer I didn't post yet.
The fountain in the huge Parque San Martin
Vistante Winery - Mendoza is the center of the Argentine wine industry
Mendoza is also a center for olive oil. This picture is from the Pasrai olive oil factory.
And here's a more personal reporting style that leads this post in a different direction from Americas Quarterly:
"BUENOS AIRES - “He can’t stop coughing/working 12-hour-long shifts/he makes two meager coins a day to support a family of four/and don’t talk to me about meritocracy, don’t be funny, don’t screw with me/because without opportunities/that mierda doesn’t work.”
It’s hard to miss the frustration driving the lyrics of “Canguro,” a song written by 21-year-old Argentine trap star Wos, whose criticisms of the status quo under President Mauricio Macri have struck a chord with many. Debuting just days before the August primary election that delivered a blow to Macri’s reelection prospects, the song quickly climbed the charts and has racked up over 44 million views on YouTube.
Wos is among a cohort of young public figures who have used popular culture and social media to mobilize opposition to Macri among youth. The demographic has been hit particularly hard by the recession under the current government. In the second quarter of 2019, unemployment among ages 14 to 29 rose to 18.6% for men and to 23.4% for women, according to the latest government figures."
Here's Wos' video. With the introduction above you can get a good sense of the power of this song even without understanding Spanish. It says it has 50 million hits since August 8. That's about six weeks.
Here are just the lyrics from Genius.com. I've added a Google Translate English version in purple.
[Letra de "CANGURO"]
[Intro]
Hoy no voy a salir y voy a quedarme en la' nube' donde nadie sube
[Estribillo]
(Uah) No vengas a molestar, dicen que está todo mal‚ bueno
(Uah) Yo estoy más que bien acá y no te pienso ni mirar‚ ciego (Ciego)
Vamo'‚ repriman la mierda que tienen guardada en el pecho
Traguen y callen hasta estar desecho', párense siempre derecho
"Cállenlo, sédenlo‚ que haga lo que quiera, pero sáquenlo" y
"Cállenlo, sédenlo‚ que haga lo que quiera, pero sáquenlo"
Ey, háganme caso, ¿o no tienen claro que soy el rey?
Háganme caso que soy la ley, dame mis blíster', mis Parisiennes, wah
["CANGURO" lyrics]: [Enter] I'm not going out today and I'm going to stay in the 'cloud' where nobody goes up [Chorus] (Uah) Don't come bother, they say it's all wrong ‚well (Uah) I'm more than good here and I don't even think about you ‚blind (Blind) Vamo '‚repress the shit they have in their chest Swallow and shut up until you are wasted ', always stand straight "Shut it up, know it‚ do what you want, but take it out "and "Shut it up, know it‚ do what you want, but take it out " Hey, pay attention to me, or are you not sure that I am the king? Listen to me that I am the law, give me my blister ', my Parisiennes, wah
[Verso 1]
Patada de canguro, golpe duro
No vamo' a parar con esto, negro, te lo juro
Traje cianuro pa' meterle' en el trago
Cinco minuto' acá y ya estamo' causando estragos
Un mago nos quiere hacer desaparecer
Pero esta plaga rara nunca para de crecer
Somo' de los pocos locos que andan buscando placer
Y aunque quieran vernos roto', no damo' brazo a torcer
No para de toser, trabajando doce hora'
Cobra dos moneda' al mes pa' mantener cuatro persona'
Y no hables de meritocracia, me da gracia, no me joda'
Que sin oportunidades esa mierda no funciona
Y no, no hace falta gente que labure más
Hace falta que con menos se pueda vivir en paz
Mandale gas, no te perdás, acordate dónde estás
Fijáte siempre de qué lado de la mecha te encontrás
[Verse 1] Kangaroo kick, hard hit I'm not going to stop with this, black, I swear Cyanide suit to get him in the drink Five minutes 'here and I'm already' wreaking havoc A wizard wants to make us disappear But this weird plague never stops growing Somo 'of the few crazy people who are looking for pleasure And even if they want to see us broken ', I don't dare' arm to twist He doesn't stop coughing, working twelve hours' Charge two coins' per month to 'keep four people' And don't talk about meritocracy, I'm funny, don't fuck me ' That without opportunities that shit doesn't work And no, you don't need people to work anymore It is necessary that with less one can live in peace Send gas, don't get lost, remember where you are Always notice which side of the wick you found
[Verso 2]
Dice: "What up? Esto pega como coca"
La gente baila loca, el cuello se disloca
La droga en lo' dedo', que vaya de boca en boca
Sentís como te choca, esa vaina subió la nota
Salto como una pulga, empezó la purga
Largo todo fresco como un PXXR GVNG, hijo de…
Otra vez con sed entre fiebres y migraña'
Vuelvo a soñar con un viejo en el medio de una montaña
Me miró y me dijo: "De la vida nadie se salva
Y eso de la juventud es solo una actitud del alma"
Qué virtud extraña, ahora me queman las entrañas
Mi mejor conversación la tuve ayer con una araña
No sé qué hora es, ni me interesa
Acá siempre son 4:20, y estamo' de la cabeza, con simpleza
Birra barata y mala en lata, má' la planta santa esa
La que calma el cuerpo y te lo desestresa
El hood está de fiesta, el culo se te tensa
Entiendo que te molesta, la empatía te cuesta
Y si ahora gritamo' y cantamo' en modo de protesta
Es porque preguntamo' bien y nadie nos dio una respuesta
Se creen dueños, salgan del medio, lo digo en serio
Fuera la yuta que meten al barrio, le tira a los pibe' y le mata los sueño'
Bueno, juego, del underground, del agujero
Estamo' agitando de nuevo, sacando pa' afuera a eso' carroñero', ñero
[Verse 2] He says: "What up? This hits like coca" People dance crazy, the neck dislocates The drug in the 'finger', that goes from mouth to mouth You feel how it hits you, that pod raised the note I jump like a flea, the purge began Long all fresh as a PXXR GVNG, son of ... Again thirsty between fevers and migraine ' I dream again of an old man in the middle of a mountain He looked at me and said: "No one is saved from life And that of youth is just an attitude of the soul " What a strange virtue, now my insides burn I had my best conversation yesterday with a spider I don't know what time it is, nor interest me It's always 4:20 here, and I'm right in the head, simply Cheap and bad canned birra, plus the holy plant that The one that calms the body and unstresses you The hood is partying, the ass tenses I understand that it bothers you, empathy costs you And if now I shout 'and sing' in protest mode It's because we asked 'well and nobody gave us an answer They believe they own, get out of the way, I mean it Out the jute they put into the neighborhood, he throws the kids 'and kills them the dreams' Well, play, underground, hole I'm 'waving again, getting out' that scavenger 'outside, ñero
[Estribillo]
(Uah) No vengas a molestar, dicen que está todo mal, bueno
(Uah) Yo estoy más que bien acá y no te pienso ni mirar, ciego (Ciego)
Vamo', repriman la mierda que tienen guardada en el pecho
Traguen y callen hasta estar desecho', párense siempre derecho
"Cállenlo, sédenlo, que haga lo que quiera, pero sáquenlo" y
"Cállenlo, sédenlo, que haga lo que quiera, pero sáquenlo"
Ey, háganme caso, ¿o no tienen claro que soy el rey?
Háganme caso que soy la ley, dame mis blíster', mis Parisiennes, wah
[Chorus] (Uah) Don't come bother, they say it's all wrong ‚well (Uah) I'm more than good here and I don't even think about you ‚blind (Blind) Vamo '‚repress the shit they have in their chest Swallow and shut up until you are wasted ', always stand straight "Shut it up, know it‚ do what you want, but take it out "and "Shut it up, know it‚ do what you want, but take it out " Hey, pay attention to me, or are you not sure that I am the king? Listen to me that I am the law, give me my blister ', my Parisiennes, wah
His wife will be teaching science (I think) in a Spanish language high school program in Lexington. And I'm sure Tómas will be drawing. In fact he sent me his first US drawing.
I did mention that while he is visiting in Kentucky, he would surely be drawing McConnell. Let's see how his take on the senior Senator from Kentucky evolves over the year.
Meanwhile I picked up a second book on Peron at the library today - Perón and the enigmas of Argentina by Robert D. Crassweller. This one starts out trying to capture who Perón was by looking at the many long term cultural influences. One of them is "the heritage of Castille" which he traces to 1492 when the Moors left and the Reconquest.
"That long and arduous crusade had deeply marked the Castilian character and personality. Society was pastoral and had lived by war for centuries, disdaining lesser and demeaning pursuits such as commerce. A powerful and authoritarian state emerged, energized by effective government. The parliament of Castile, the Cortes, lacked the power of the purse and soon languished. Royal power, resolutely exercised, curtailed any political role for the aristocracy, which contented itself with social privilege, and there was no significant challenge from below.
Freedom in the Anglo-Saxon sense of the world was not a product of these tendencies, but that implies neither tyranny nor misrule All the monarchs of the age were popular and intuitively sensitive to public moods and aspirations. Thus royal authority was willingly accepted and viewed as consistent with freedom and liberty. Absolutism, tied to religious values, was not seen as tyranny, since individual rights and dignity were protected." (pp. 24-25)
I'm just quoting, not saying it's accurate. It's certainly simplistic, as a short synopsis like this must be. After all, the subjects of the religious persecution - non-Catholics, particularly Jews - didn't have their rights and dignity protected and probably would disagree.
What I found particularly interesting was a description of the Spanish state and church ruled a much different culture than that in northern Europe.
"The State had never known feudalism in the the northern European sense of a system with centers of politics power apart from, and often in opposition to, the royal authority. There had been no Magna Carta inSpain, no warlike barons jealously and successfully protecting their local powers, no system of courts enforcing laws that did not originate with the king's justice. The Church was the Church of the Counter-Reformation, necessarily broad and pluralistic in many respects, a palace of many chambers, but nowhere in it had there been any experience in sharing of the power that was tightly consolidated in the successors of St. Peter.
Thus neither Crown nor Church could contribute to the traditions, the techniques, and the psychological attitudes that are essential for adjusting successfully the claims of competing power centers in a society containing many such. The arts of compromise and conciliation, and the habits of mind necessary for their appreciation, were dormant and underdeveloped."(25-26)
Again, I can't judge how accurate this is, but it seems appropriate to do a little Spanish history as I welcome Tómas and his wife to the US. But let me do a little more. So far he's talking about what the Spanish heritage Perón would eventually inherit didn't do well, but he goes on to talk about what it did well. He does a paragraph about the philosophy and political thought coming from Aquinas, Aristotle, and Renaissance Scholasticism, not from the social contract theory of Rousseau, Locke, and Hobbes.
"Rather, it was a powerful stimulus to an organic theory of life and of the State, a theory of natural harmony in which every human and every institution had a purpose, a station, ordained and secure. And it was also a powerful support for the prevailing Mediterranean and Iberian corporatism, defined in the broad sense of a 'sociopolitical organization that is . . hierarchical, elitist, authoritarian, bureaucratic, Catholic, patrimonialist . . ."
"Castilian society exalted courage and honor and defined them in an exclusive and stringent code as ideals appropriate for the man of rank, the gentleman, the hidalgo. For such a man and such an ideal ". . . work did not redeem and had no value in itself. Manual work was servile. There was little or no interest in science and its fluid experimentation, or in technology and technique in general, or in any kind of economic activity. The superior man neither worked nor traded: he made war, he commanded, he legislated. He also thought, contemplated, loved, wooed, and enjoyed himself. Leisure was noble." (26)
While it may seem I've taken quite a bit from Crassweller, he would probably say I left out the most important parts. And this is only one of the cultural heritages he's telling us we need to understand if we are going to get a good sense of Perón. Another will be the creole heritage. I like the idea of going back like this to find influences on Perón, but I also realize it's a risky act. Is he going back and finding things in Spanish culture that manifest themselves in Perón, leaving out much that is not 'Perón"? I can't judge. Maybe Tómas will be the best evaluator of this cut and paste Spanish heritage.
[Kathy, for some reason my brain says you're in Louisville, which isn't that far, but not that close either. Am I right?]
We've all heard, in one form or another, George Santana's warning "Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it."
But figuring out what the lessons are isn't easy. People interpret the past differently. They take in some factors, but not others. People applied a lesson of post World War II - how Russia took over various countries and made them part of the communist bloc - to support the US going to war in Vietnam, which was supposed to stop the fall of SE Asian countries, like dominoes, to the communists. It was the wrong lesson.
After spending a month in Argentina and learning a little about the history of the country, I decided to get some books on Juan Peron to learn more. I'm just starting the first one - a series of articles about different aspects of Peron and his government.
But which lessons should one take away? Chapter 2, "Evita and Peronism" begins
"Few political figures in the history of Argentina have aroused as much violent hatred or passionate love as Eva Perón. To her followers, she was Evita, a selfless woman who worked tirelessly to improve the lives of workers, destitute women, and needy children . . .To her enemies, however, she only an ambitious actress, a trollop who rose to the top by using countless men, a hypocrite interested in money, jewels, and luxurious clothes . . ."
Juan Peron was, in the words of Frederick C. Turner,
"far more than the most important leader of Argentina in the twentieth century. In many ways, he was a prototypical figure of this century. His ideals were far grander than his lasting achievements; he sincerely wanted to improve the welfare of the least privileged members of his society. Yet, despite distrubitionist policies that made the poor unswervingly loyal to him, his economic initiatives spurred inflation and undercut the economic growth that might have been the surest aid to the lower classes in the long run."
We can argue whether he was a good man or not, or whether he was a good president or not, or whether his policies made Argentina a better country. But what is clear is that he was a larger than life figure who apparently had the best of intentions, but even his supporters acknowledge that he didn't really succeed in improving the long term outcomes in Argentina.
There are parts that I can relate to immediately because of the trip. Like this sentence:
"The descamisados (the shirtless ones) would gather in the Plaza de Mayo and Perón, the leader, would address them from a balcony of the Casa Rosada."
We went to the Plaza de Mayo on our second outing in Buenos Aires, when it was raining quite a bit.
Here's the Casa Rosado and the balcony from which he spoke is probably on the picture. The first time was 1945. There were various factions. He had been the Minister of Labor, but when one president was replaced he had been arrested. But not for long (5 days) and the labor unions he had worked for marched to the Plaza de Mayo for his release. And he got out and addressed them. It was 17 de Octobre and that's still and important day. There's even a street with that name.
It wasn't til almost our last day in Argentina when we went of a tour organized by our original host in Buenos Aires to La Boca, that I learned about descamisados. We saw the words on this building and she explained it meant "the shirtless" (camisa means shirt) and these were the poor who were Perón's staunchest supporters.
When Turner talks about the bibliography, he mentions that it omits
"references to one of the ways in which tens of thousands of people are currently obtaining a view of Perón: through Evita, the malicious, one-sided, anti-Peronist musical that has been playing to packed houses in London and New York. As theater, it is arresting; as history, it is false. The musical cheaply exploits the image of Evita as a harlot and perpetuates such myths as her great participation in bringing Perón to power in 1945. It alleges the dangerous charisma, the essential opportunism of Perón. Yet, in a perverse manner, even this historical travesty underlines the importance and the continuing attraction of Perón and Evita; its creators may occasionally touch upon the truth quite by accident rather than through design or understanding. . ."
I'm just starting on my Perón adventure, but it's already a reminder that history has many stories that can help us think about the present. There's a force that tends to pull me toward comparisons between Perón and Trump. (Turner looks at similarities and differences between Perón and Hitler and Musolini - only because they were alike as very powerful charismatic leaders of their countries. There are similarities to Trump
"Without sufficient institutional limitations on his rule, choosing his lieutenants, like his wife, on the basis of their loyalty and submissiveness rather than their brilliance or their academic credentials, Perón did make too many major decisions personally. Having surrounded himself with admirers, he did not benefit from the critical responses of insiders that might have improved the quality of those decisions and therefore also their public acceptability in the long run."
"Perón's failures were more prosaic than stupidity or cowardice: unfortunately, like so many of us, he failed to understand economics and relied far too much upon his own judgment. . . Perón understood the warm, human issues of political symbolism and the generation of mass support, not the colder constraints of budgeting and sacrificial strategies for economic growth."
Marysa Navarro's chapter on Evita Perón includes this on personal loyalty to Perón:
"Stating unequivocally her fanaticism toward Perón, she demanded - and obtained - that same commitment from his followers. In so doing, she was responsible for the creation of a cult of the leader that required absolute loyalty to him, complete trust in him, unconditional allegiance to him and blind obedience to his word."
But also serious differences. Turner argues that Perón had a heart and cared about human beings.
"Noting that Perón increased the share of national wealth going to the workers from 38 percent in the early 1940s to 46 percent in 1948, Juan Corradi quite rightly points out that the workers' support for Perón came from a rational perception of their interests rather than simply from their admiration of Perón's special gifts of leadership style."
What I've got so far is that there is disagreement about Perón still. This first book was published in 1987, over ten years after Perón's death, but still a long time ago. So I'm not sure what more recent books say.
I'd note that while General San Martin has squares and streets named after him everywhere we went, I didn't notice the same widespread presence of Perón. We even had to ask people to find Evita's grave at the Recoleta Cemetery.
I don't have pictures, because these moments came when I didn't have my camera out, and because I'm hesitant to intrude in intimate moments, but let me give you several examples of the caring I saw among people in Argentina.
1. People greet each other with hugs that include cheek to cheek contact
I don't know the rules of who hugs who like this. Certainly family members, but also work colleagues, friends, and even we received this treatment from people. This contact is male-female, female-female, and male-male. I think this - I want to say intimacy, but maybe it's because my US cultural perspective sees it that way - physical contact breaks down barriers that handshakes can't.
2. I saw lots of fathers really enjoying being with their young children
Men would have their kids on their shoulders, or mock battle with them, men would become little kids themselves in their play with their children. And there was an obvious love that sparkled in the eyes of parent and child and showed in the natural smiles they shared. I'm not saying there aren't cold fathers in Argentina, just that I saw a lot more pure love showing than I see in the US.
3. Mate bonding
I've mentioned mate in a few posts already. It's a kind of tea that Argentines (Uruguayans and Chileans) drink from small gourd cups through metal straws. I guess gourds were the original cups, but they also use ceramic cups. Everywhere you see people with their mate cups and a small thermos to replenish the hot water.
Bus drivers, people walking down the street, teachers, everybody drinks mate and it's a ritual. People don't toss their mate cups the way Americans toss their latte cups.
But I'm talking about mate again here because people share their mate. They share their metal mate straws. The only thing like it I can think of in the US would be people sharing a joint.
Here's the bus driver on one of our tours adding hot water to his mate.
And here he's sharing his mate with the guide.
4. Airplane Safety Video
Aerolíneas had an animated safety video - all the stuff about seat belts, oxygen masks, that we see or hear every time a flight is about to take off. What made this animation different was that when the mother put the child's oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, the mother lovingly and ever so fleetingly (and unconsciously) she strokes the child's cheek. And when the mother is shown helping the child get on his life rest, again, she reassuringly tousles his hair.
I've never seen anything like that in an airline safety message before. And while there are commercials that show that sort of thing, I don't think I've ever seen one as natural as this. I could be wrong, but I felt like the artist just put the love into the animation and no one objected. Though it's quite possible they spent hours debating this. But for me, the outcome was one more example of a human bonding that I saw lots of in Argentina. (We weren't in Chile or Brazil long enough to make such observations.)
OK, that's it. In this time of great interpersonal nastiness unleashed by the US president, I thought it important to shine a little lot of these acts of love. I have no illusions that Argentinians aren't capable of evil - they demonstrated that in the 70s and 80s. But these moments of caring did catch my attention.
If all goes right, we’ll be in Anchorage tomorrow.
Transition is that time where you brain adjusts from one environment to another. I’m still, for instance, ready to say Buen Día and gracias and quiero. I’m still looking at the dinner bill and computing it in pesos and dollars. Invisible membranes reach out from my brain to the many wonderful people we met. How are they doing? Feeling their love and sending back mine.
I'm trying to hold onto Argentina and Chile as long as I can. To be, at least partially there, as I slide through LA reality and into Anchorage reality. I looked through my pictures to find some that never got posted, but should. I’ve got two particular pictures of trees.
Which brought up the name Carlos Thays. It shows up on streets and in parks all over Argentina. But until now I haven’t looked him up. I knew he had designed parks. From his Wikipedia page:
"Born Jules Charles Thays in Paris, France in 1849,[2] Carlos Thays arrived in Argentina in 1889,[2] after he was recommended by Jean Alphand to Argentine pioneer Miguel Crisol, who contracted Thays to design Sarmiento Park in Córdoba.[1] During his time in Córdoba Thays became infatuated with the young country and decided to spend the rest of his life in Argentina. After moving to Buenos Aires he was named the city's Director of Parks & Walkways in 1891.[2] This position gave him significant influence over the design of the city's open spaces, and his legacy is still strongly felt in the city's open spaces today."
Here's the Parque San Martín, in Mendoza. I just couldn't keep walking without pulling out my camera, the vision was so striking.
And yes, this is a Thays designed park. We walked over to this park our first morning of our first visit to Mendoza. (Mendoza was located perfectly to be our starting point for San Juan and then Santiago and back.) And I was struck by how beautiful the trees were and how they were located just perfectly. Here are two pictures from that morning in the park. Mostly, I was chasing all the birds with my telephoto lens - not very successfully - but I couldn't help notice the trees.
I don't know if Thays designed the landscaping for this river that flows through downtown Córdoba, but he did design Sarmiento Park in Córdoba, so if he's not directly responsible for these trees, I'm sure it's his influence.
One of Thays' largest undertakings was the Parque Tres de Febrero,[2] a sweeping area of open land covering several square kilometers filled with thousands of trees, flowers, many fountains, and monuments in the barrio of Palermo.
Well we stayed in Palermo when we first arrived in Buenos Aires and I was struck by the trees there too. Here are a couple of pictures from there.
The Wikipedia page doesn't say anything about Thays visiting Santiago, but I'm guessing, from the parks we saw in downtown Santiago, that his influence reached there as well.
I’m over the Pacific just west of Acapulco, about three hours from landing in LA. We’ve been out of the US for just over a month. This is the longest stretch out of the US since twelve years ago when we were in Thailand for three months where I worked as a volunteer with an NGO that helped poor farmers. .
As our return was nearing this last week, I began to think about Jews who traveled outside of Germany - or other countries the Nazis would take over - during the 1930s and then returned. Many, if not most, ended up in concentration camps. Should I seek political asylum in Argentina? No, I’m not a target. Yet. For now the targets are people with darker skin than mine. Jews are in a strange never-never land. They’re, as always, in the scopes of white nationalists/neo-Nazis, but the president’s son-in-law is Jewish and his daughter converted. Being pro-Israel is a conservative thing now, probably because of strong Evangelical Christians support of Israel. So, what happens to Jews who have serious questions about the way Israel is treating its Arab citizens and the neighboring Palestinians?
But that’s an aside to the terror Trump is causing among Central American immigrants to the US. This fear isn't unlike what Jews, LGBTQ folks, Communists, Romani, and others felt about the Gestapo arriving at their door. You can say that they aren't intentionally killing people on the border, but that came later in Germany as well. People just knew it was bad and they may not see their families again. Same as now. This fear affects more than those seeking asylum - a perfectly legal thing to do. It includes those in the US without documentation, including all the dreamers, and those with papers who could find themselves targets anyway, The same thing happened in Argentina in the 70s and 80s, and in Chile under Pinochet. In the later two places the US was supporting the abusive governments.
And I thought about all this as we lined up in Lima for our last leg of our trip home. Nearly all the people with us on this plane are NOT native speakers. I didn’t hear anyone speaking English. It was all Spanish, maybe some Portuguese. Many dark skinned people. We’re on a Boeing 787-8. Maybe 300 people. How many planes like this fly into the US everyday from the south?
What does that say about Trump’s policies on the border? And the ICE raids? (Yes, I realize this past weekend’s raids didn’t actually happen in the scale expected.). Does it mean that all the focus on the border is simply for show? Does it mean Trump isn’t worried about legal immigrants as he says, just undocumented ones? Does it mean Democrats ought to acknowledge the many people flying in legally? Probably all those questions are more complicated than yes/no answers could cover. Clearly the treatment of people seeking asylum on the border is outrageous and easily preventable if the Trump administration cared at all. But there’s also a high level of incompetence in the administration, and most likely the contractors for the camps are making a fortune.
But what happens next? Are things going to return to normal after the 2020 election? Even if the Democrats win the presidency and the Senate, I’m not sure they will. Trump has pushed the norms of governing in the US so far beyond respect for the law, for decency, for precedents, for freedom of the press, for respect for one’s opposition, that it will be hard. And Trump and his supporters will fight any loss in the streets and in the courts. (Or the long shot possibility is that they will lose their steam. But don't count on it. They have lots of guns.)
But what if we don’t have a fair election, or a fair enough election, to get rid of Trump and the Republican majority in the Senate? By that I mean more cyber and other propaganda from abroad and from conservative billionaires. I mean voter suppression and hacking voting machines. Germans didn’t think that Hitler would last, but he meddled with the system, and the burning of the Reichstag, which many think the Nazi's instigated. And so he stayed in power. Trump’s majority on the Supreme Court leaves us with no guarantee that justice will be served if elections are challenged. We already have the Florida election decision that gave Bush the election in 2000, from a less conservative court. And the court majority just recently had no objection to political gerrymandering.
So asking about returning isn’t the silly question some might think. And I’ve only been talking about the US. I haven’t mentioned the catastrophe that is Alaska after Dunleavy’s vetoes weren’t overridden.
These are dark times. I guess the main reason to return is to fight to get my state and country back. [We didn't seek asylum in Lima. We're back home. And I know Argentina will stop dominating my brain very fast. But it's time to more seriously and intensely work for a better Alaska and USA.]
This is a continuation of our tour of parts of Buenos Aires with Carolina and Belem. Part 1 which covers La Boca is here. While we were with Belen, Carolina had moved the car so it was close to the museum and we then went off to San Telmo market.Again, we were dropped off and with Caroline walked the open market, saw the church, and bought some home made soap.
Here’s where we got dropped off, with the church behind this muraled wall.
And across the street was a very spiffy looking apartment building.
I got fascinated by the floor tiles. They have this Escher like patterN, and then in a spot of light, I saw that it was made up of pentagonal tiles. I want these in my house somewhere.
J liked the tiles out in front of the church.
Here’s the street market from in front of the church.
We got to what looked like a larger square that was filled with booths that looked more like a flea market and then up another street passing musicians, a magician, until we got to the San Telmo market. It was teaming with people. It’s a regular neighborhood market shops selling all sorts of things - fruits, vegetables - beautiful fresh vegies - meat. And lots of little places to eat.
On the right, they’re making empanadas.
We got a couple of vegetarian empanadas - the best I’ve ever had - and a humita chala, which was a mix of corn and onions and something else wrapped in a corn husk. I am going to have to figure out how they made that because it was delicious.
We wandered around a bit more. At one point a car was trying to figure out where it wanted to go and the car behind it almost touched it and honked. Hands flew out the windows of the first car. I was in sympathy with them. They pulled into a parking place, but someone called out from a window to say they couldnt. But Belen told them we were just up the street and leaving so they followed us and all was well.
From there we wandered over to ‘the most expensive part of town”. Puerto Madero. It’s on an island and there are only a couple of bridges there. Lots of fancy high rise business and residential buildings.
We stopped and Belen wanted to show us the very fancy Faena Hotel, in a refurbished old brick building. We didn’t see much, but this long red space was striking. There’s a lot of money involved here. Belen asked for information on a tango show they have. “It’s not ‘a’ tango show, it’s ‘the best tango show” was the response. It’s $250 a person. I asked if that was pesos or dollars. Dollars. Is Lady Gaga in it? Belen smiled.
Then we got caught in a traffic jam. Nothing was moving. Well, sometimes the bridges are pulled up to let boats pass. In 15 minutes we were off the island and headed by the Colon National Theater and then by the old Synagogue.
It was a gorgeous sunny day, in the upper 60s. But it got chilly in the late afternoon.
We got to talking about how they are building up this business. It’s hard. But they both know Buenos Aires well and are warm and helping people. They seemed to be having as good a time as we were. It was like good friends were showing us around. They are willing to just give people basic advice - how to get into town from the airport and find a good place to stay and get a bus pass - to actually arranging everything for people including taking them around to see things. Carolina also has special connections into some fields like polo.
i don’t usually make recommendations like this, but if anyone is going to Argentina and wants some help planning their trip, their website is Choice Buenos Aires. As I said in the previous post, it’s a work in progress. These women are much better at guiding tours and planning trips than making their website just the way they’d like it. And they also have a Facebook page and a Twitter page. (@aireschoice)
We had a really wonderful day yesterday. And tomorrow morning early, we head for the airport and our plane back to the US. I’m not ready to go back, even though we’ve been here a month.
