Che, Boluda!

The Argentine government is like an umpire that doesn't wear a cup -- it fails to protect its patrimony.

Before Argentina suffered an economic crisis in 2001, the area to the Northwest of Buenos Aires now known as Palermo Soho was a rather smoggy, run-down industrial area abounding in factories and inexpensive housing. It was only accidentally frequented by tourists, and even the average porteno who wasn't employed or living in the area found little reason to visit.

Valeria Simon, the owner of a clothing store selling original designs made by her brother, Paul Simon, remembers when the Plazaleta Cortazar, or the more commonly known, "Plaza Serrano," was nothing more than an empty roundabout. Towards the end of 2001 when she and her brother were no longer able to pay rent in the small space where they had their store, they joined an alliance of artisans and began selling their hand-made goods on the Plaza.

As more vendors began selling increasingly outlandish getups and baubles -- anything from chunky crocodile skin cuffs to wide-eyed fluorescent colored sock puppets -- the Plaza became the fulcrum of Buenos Aires fashion and a instant cultural oasis. Rents soared as restaurants, bars, cafes, and shops began opening in the area surrounding the plaza and a spate of shoppers -- tourists and locals -- began invading the area on the weekends...

Arriba la justicia y adelante los huevos!

Carolina de la Torre, a 26-year old student, emerged from the final exam of her 6 year law program at the University of Buenos Aires looking like a cross between couscous and chicken parmesan. Her hair was a putrid paste of mustard, mayonnaise, tomato sauce, oil, vinegar, and yerba mate.* Her arms, face, and back were covered in the above mentioned ingredients plus five dozen eggs, sugar, cider, flour, and much more than a pinch of salt.

Despite the mess of ingredients that were slammed, encrusted, dripping, and oozing from her body, Carolina was euphoric. She laughed and yelped with delight as eight of her friends continued to pummel her with the cheapest and messiest things they could purchase in a grocery store...

Jesus y Superman...

It was just two subte* stops after 1 on Tuesday afternoon, June 28th. Still befuddled by the tentacular city of Buenos Aires, I decided that it was best to grab my guia T and map the area out on foot. Walking around the neighborhood of Villa Crespo, I passed many hair salons, convenience stores, pizzerias, and lingerie shops selling bras with built-in nipples. Just over the train tracks and directly across from the Nike Outlet Store, I was distracted by a very large tree that was draped, tacked, wrapped, hung, stacked, and surrounded with a sundry array of items – all in the same shade of poppy red.

Shirts, bandanas, bamboo sticks, ribbons, beads, and large embroidered cloths were ravelled around the tree’s branches. Poinsettias, carnations, roses, hibiscuses, geraniums, gerbera daisies and seven-month old mistletoe careened from its flanks. The runny red wax of burnt-out candles drizzled onto its roots, and four small hutches with red roofs, each about the size of a dollhouse, were lined up in front of its trunk. A sideways stump set before a soiled strip of carpet served as a makeshift pew to what seemed a very particular altar...

It is July of 2007 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. The temperature is an unlikely 15 degrees Celsius, and though it hasn’t snowed since 1917, Argentina won’t see it’s 93rd year of independence before a smattering of heaven's dandruff hits the streets of BA, cataclysmically prompting a flurry of 6-inch snowmen to sprout about the city.

Scarlett Johannson is on the cover of the latest Vogue, Katie Holmes is on the cover of the latest Harper’s, and as always, thong-wearing women with chests that protrude from their bodies like the exhaust pipes on the Batmobile are on the cover of just about every other magazine you can find at a kiosk. It costs 5 pesos to have your laundry done, and 10 to have a tooth extracted. A three-scoop ice cream sundae with three toppings costs 9 pesos, and a cherry-pineapple Margarita won’t cost less than 12. You can buy a SIM card for your phone for 15 pesos, enjoy a good quality steak for 11 pesos, and get a brand new pair of Fanta orange leather loafers for 90 pesos. The dollar to peso exchange rate is at an all-time high, somewhere between $3.17 and $3.20, depending on the day.

Sundry observations:

A movie you will see adds for on just about every flat surface: Ratatouille (the scene in which the aspiring mouse-chef dances with a carrot, to be precise).

A musical group you are likely to hear on the radio: Soda Stereo

The hottest new dance: The electric tango (It's electric, but fortunately involves no ‘boogie woogie’)

The most talked about man in town aside from Diego Maradona: Sigmund Freud

Something not worth going to see in the theater: Cinderella’s Disney on Ice

Something that would have been worth going to see in the theater: Tanguera, but it closed and has been replaced by Victor Victoria.

What you can’t walk 3 blocks without stumbling upon: a pizzeria

The top three most common empanada fillings (in order of their popularity):
1. carne
2. jamon y queso
3. it’s a toss up between cebolla y queso and pollo
My personal favorite: pumpkin

The most outlandish event discussed in the news: A milk truck driver that emptied the contents of his vehicle (some 6,000 liters of milk), onto another man’s front lawn, landscaping his home with what was officially referred to as “putrid ricotta.” A recent court ruling has granted the homeowner 200,000 pesos in damages.

Something that people are getting excited about: The soccer world finals, (until Argentina loses to Brazil…again).

The spelling of my favorite dessert in almost every pasteleria: ‘Lemon Pay’

The most crowded eatery at 12:30am on any given weekday in the microcenter of the city: McDonald’s

Three things you are likely to hear a porteno complain about:
1. The flu
2. The overtaking of many supermarkets by Chinese shopowners who are rumored to receive government subventions to support their livelihood.
3. The rising price of meat which is forcing Argentines to eat more fish. They generally enjoy the taste of seafood, but not the overall experience of eating it because it is not as filling as meat, and therefore always leaves them hungry.

Five different areas in which you can take a class, according to a sign in Calle Florida subway station:
1. Turtle-breeding
2. Learning to interpret the many meanings of smoke
3. Turning soup cans into percussion instruments
4. Skating on masses of foam
5. Writing constructive messages on post-it notes

A recent, earth-shattering discovery that has rocked popular culture: hip hop music.

Dos puntos de vista

Alan Parker’s 1996 hit “Evita” was filmed at the Casa Rosada, or the Argentine Presidential Palace. That sporadically blonde mid drift-bearing chameleon of a woman who started out by rolling around in diamonds and singing about her virginity got to perform “Don’t Cry for Me Argentina” from the very balcony where the first lady would address her descamisados.

That same year, another film about the life of Evita was released. It was an Argentine production directed by Juan Carlos DeSanzo, starring the eminent portena actress Esther Goris. The balcony scenes for this film, entitled “Eva Peron,” were not shot at the Casa Rosada, rather from the main balcony of the Four Seasons Hotel.

Why did Madonna get the real deal, but not Esther? If you add an ‘r’ and subtract an ‘n’ from ‘Madonna’ you end up with ‘Maradona,’ but surely this similarity in spelling isn’t enough to give a foreign actress in a foreign film privilege over a home-grown actress in a home-grown, more historically accurate film? Of course not...

Libre de impuestos...

On June 20th, 1973, Juan Peron returned to Argentina after nearly twenty years of political exile in Francoist Spain. Two million people came to greet him at Ezeiza, an International Airport located just on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. From the podium where he was to speak, camouflaged gunmen of the Argentine Anticommunist Alliance (AAA) fired at the crowds, killing 13 people and wounding over 300.

When I arrived at this same airport, exactly 34 years and 4 days later, I was met with a different sort of ambush. Bleary-eyed and slightly disoriented from the long trip, I recovered my luggage and was on my way to customs when I abrubtly experienced the overwhelming dread of having taken a 17-hour flight to the QVC headquarters. A massive duty-free shopping hangar appeared out of nowhere, completely littered with signs of just reduced prices in American dollars on Channel, Dior, Ferragamo, Marlboro, and the other glitterati of the airport-shopping world. Seeing the masses of perfume-spritzing women and ballpoint pen selling men was unsettling, and made my first impression of Buenos Aires akin to something of a giant front lawn on which the world liquidated its empty opulence.

While I knew that this showy display was predominantly for tourists, I couldn't help but wonder what percentage Argentines could actually afford what was sold in these shops. I had been told that the average salary was 1200 pesos a month, or $400 U.S. dollars, which doesn't really allow for the luxury of a London Tie or even a 10-pound bag of skittles...