Part Three: The Kitty Cats of Death.
Friday started out with me feeling the psychic pressure of being in close proximity with so many extroverts for so long. We had an early breakfast in the hotel with the entire crowd, since everyone was going on an excursion together this morning and the buses were to load at 8:00. Meaning a bit of a fight to get service, since even under these circumstances the Argentine default is to leave people to have a leisurely meal, no rushing about to refill coffee cups or any such nonsense. Somehow, we managed.
On the buses a bit after 8:00. Another brilliant and beautiful spring day – just perfect for a nice jaunt through a cemetery.
Say what?
Yeah, Cementerio de la Recoleta – where all the beautiful people of Argentina go to spend the afterlife. No, I’m not kidding. Our guide took great pleasure in explaining all about the place, and how as far as most Argentines are concerned, it doesn’t matter where you came from, or what you did, so long as you are buried in the right place.
Here’s a Spanish language site with a lot more photos of the place. It really is quite amazing, in a very surreal way. Incredible art & architecture to the some six thousand mausoleums – ranging from pseudo Baroque to Art Deco. Elaborately carved doors, stunningly beautiful statues, glorious & glowing stained glass – you’ll find it all there in the cemetery. Most of the dead people there live better than the vast majority of the still walking population in Buenos Aires, and the amount of wealth splashed about the place seems almost obscene when you find yourself driving through/past the shantytowns around the city. And the cemetery has far and away the best sidewalks in the entire city.
One other thing it also has is cats. While stray dogs rule supreme throughout the rest of the country, here in the quiet of the necropolis, it is cats who reign. Domestic housecats. Er, make that domestic mausoleumcats. They’re everywhere. Everywhere. In twos and threes. Solo and in small packs, clustered around bowls of food, milk, and water that locals leave for them. Silent, serene, more than a little eerie.
I was, honestly, glad to get out of the place. No, cemeteries don’t bother me. And I love cats. I even appreciate good art in almost all forms. But this fetishization – this status competition of which family has the best location and grandest burial for their dead – was creepy. Such ostentation strikes me as being more about the glory of the living than the memory of the dead.
Anyway, we left. Back on the buses. Through the city. Through suburbs. Through more suburbs, all on surface streets, stopping at every light, looking around into the houses and businesses. Easily feels like it could be just about any major American city, in the nice part of town. Plenty of car dealers. And boat dealers. And fast-food places. Our guide (not ‘Ferguson’) explains that these are all the rich parts of the city, desireable because of the proximity to the river.
The river? Actually, the estuary Rio de la Plata. But they call it a river, and take pride that it is so wide. No, I am not kidding. Yes, it is wide – some 30 miles where it starts at the juncture of two other major rivers, to almost 140 miles at the boundary of the Atlantic. And a big chunk of this estuary forms a huge delta, interlaced with numerous small navigable passages, creating countless small islands just a few feet above the water level. Most of this delta is, by treaty, a nature preserve, but one large section of it close to Buenos Aires is settled, more or less permanently.
And I can see why. It is a beautiful, peaceful, place. It would be a great place to hide from the world. And relatively inexpensive – a decent sized hunk of an island, big enough for a nice little vacation home and a bit of yard, a garden – will go for $30,000 to $100,000, depending on the quality of the house and how remote the location. We got out onto the river in a couple of decent sized tour boats, and for almost an hour made our way through some of the larger channels, finally arriving at the Restaurante Gato Blanco (“White Cat”). Charming. And good food. We sat out on the deck, watching other patrons arrive by boat (and their boats taken away by valet service – when you have seating for some 250 people, and are only accessible by boat, this is an issue), enjoying the breeze and the food.
Once done eating, while the others sat and chatted, I wandered off behind the restaurant to explore a bit. The whole place was dead-flat level, and lush, the soil somewhat springy and very very rich. Even though it was still early spring, there were already many trees and flowers in bloom, with both butterflies and bees feeding at the flowers. The island was very much like a park, an old park in a quiet part of town, showing signs of love and age and much use.
We got back on the boats that brought us, made our way back to the Tigre Fluvial Station. From there the group split, with the choristers heading off for a workshop rehearsal, the rest of us back to the hotels. Our friend ML and I dropped off stuff, then headed out for some shopping, swimming against the human tide. Got back and spent some time relaxing.
It had been arranged that we would all go off to have dinner with some local families, in small groups of six to eight. It would be a chance to spend time with some of the residents in their homes, getting to know one another and learn a bit about how a typical family lived. Alix was looking forward to it, but I just decided that I couldn’t face more time with people – I was worn ragged by all the contact I had had over the past several days. So when she got back from the workshop, I let her know I was going to beg off the dinner. It was a shame, really, because she had a great time (along with the others), and I probably would have as well. But my ‘extrovert batteries’ were just dead, and I needed to spend some time alone in peace and quiet in order to recharge enough for other things coming up. She went, I popped out to a local street vendor and got a sandwich, and then retired to the room where I relaxed and did some reading. It helped.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Argentina, Humor, Mark Twain, N. Am. Welsh Choir, Patagonia, Society, Travel
Part Two: Home, home of the strays.
On Thursday the 16th, Alix was going to be busy with some choir-related rehearsals, so I opted for one of the excursions available to non-choir members of the tour which left at 8:00 local time. As a result, I was up and going early.
Went downstairs into the hotel’s dining area for breakfast (included in the room price). It was actually quite a nice spread, and showed that they cater to Americans and Europeans – in addition to various cereals and breakfast breads, juices and yoghurt, there was was a wide selection of German style cold meats and cheeses, fresh fruits and fruit cocktail, even US style bacon and scrambled eggs. But there were local items as well – something like a quiche or fritatta which was egg-based, with a crusty top and a base of peas – and that was quite good. There was also something like a beef stew – chunks of beef in a brown sauce, a side dish of potatoes and carrots you could add as you wished. This was fantastic. The coffee was also excellent, even though Argentina is not a coffee-producing country, and is available almost everywhere throughout the day, served in small cups similar to (but not as strong as) a Turkish coffee or espresso.
A side note, which I should have mentioned in the previous travelogue: you will hear a lot of hype about the quality of Argentine beef, and of the popularity of both asados and parrilladas. Believe every word of it. Seriously – I lived in Iowa for some 15 years, and thought I knew what top-quality meat was. The Argentine beef we had while on the trip was even better, every single time, without exception. Little wonder that the Argentine diet is very heavy on beef. The stuff is just phenomenal. The Wikipedia article on Argentine Cuisine overall is very accurate from my experience. In fact, I had to make a conscious decision partway through the trip to cut way back on the amount of food I was eating, since I was feeling overly stuffed all the time.
Anyway, I had a nice breakfast, then got on the tour bus for the trip over to La Plata. The bus was nice – all the buses we had were nice – but when you spend about 217 hours a day on one for weeks on end, you get sick of the damned things. And this is was my first experience with the tour guide I shall henceforth call “Ferguson”.
Ferguson was a nice enough sort, but seemingly could not shut up. I don’t mean that he carried on a rambling discription of all the things we saw, and all the places we went. No, he would repeat himself about a dozen times on any given little factoid, each time trying some new formulation to the English which almost but not quite meant the same thing as the previous version, always in a sing-song sort of voice that I came to loathe. And over the course of the dozen permutations he would range from a simple verifiable fact to almost its exact opposite – as though he were a one man game of ‘telephone’. It got to the point where most of the tour members just did their best to ignore whatever he said, which was a tad problematic given that often he was our only source for information as to scheduling, upcoming events we need to prepare for, et cetera. I just got in the habit of listening to the *first* thing he said, which was usually reasonably close to the truth, and then tried to tune out all subsequent “clarifications”. When I say henceforth that Ferguson said this or that, understand that this is what I mean and I am cutting out the 12 to 14 other versions I usually got from the man.
Anyway, we got on the bus to La Plata, located to the east of the Buenos Aires city center about twenty minutes, on the south shore of the Rio La Plata. The ride took us from the concentrated urban area of our hotels through a variety of suburbs, which ranged from American/European style areas to startlingly apocalyptic shanty towns. Seriously – vast swathes of land where the housing consisted of little more than packing materials, boardered by places where it was difficult to discern whether the high rises were going up or coming down. In the merely marginal areas there was some semblence of regular (unpaved) streets and a power grid, with large black plastic tanks of water on the rooftops. In the poorer sections, even this much civilization was undetectable.
Officially, the population of greater Buenos Aires is about 13 million. Unoffiicially, most people estimate it is somewhere between 16 and 18 million. Those who live in the shantytowns are about as unofficial as possible, and the source for the discrepency.
And everywhere – throughout the entire country – there are stray dogs. You don’t notice that many right in the downtown area, though there are some. But you get outside of there, and you see more. Lots more. Dogs who are clearly homeless, who shy away from most humans, but search for kindness, looking from person to person for someone who will notice them. They live off whatever scraps they can find, whatever bits are handed over. They are so prevelant that it has become common custom across the entire country to construct elevated baskets for holding garbarge, some four or five feet off the ground. One of our other tour guides later in the trip said that the Argentines loved dogs, and so were happy to see them everywhere like this. But the haunted and degraded nature of the strays said otherwise to me, as did the signs in many places which warn of feeding the dogs. These are not signs of love, leastways as I understand it.
La Plata was a designed city, not an organic one. It’s nice enough, in the slightly shabby way that seems typical of most of the country. The drivers there, as in Buenos Aires and the other large towns we visited, were universally insane, and considered things like lane markings and traffic signs to be little more than suggestions. I did ask Ferguson how “right of way” is determined in the mix of four-way and six-way intersections, since nothing was obvious. He looked at me like the question made no sense, then shrugged and said that the biggest vehicle went first, of course. But I saw no accidents, so if it works for them and I don’t have to drive in it, more power to them.
It was a beautify, clear and sunny day, a touch cool but not at all bad. We got out of the bus in front of the neogothic Cathedral, which Ferguson explained is the fourth largest in the world by some measure or another. It was impressive, but did not stand up to the great cathedrals in Europe in my mind. Across the large plaza in front of the Cathedral was the City Hall. Ferguson said we could go there for a bathroom break. We did – there seemed to be little else to see there at the time, since the City Council was in session and the bulk of the building off limits to tourists.
Out front of the City Hall there was some kind of demonstration going on. We watched from in front of the building for a while, trying to figure out what it was all about. Ferguson explained that one of the government agencies, responsible for certifying taxes, had set up a roadblock. Seems that they pull in cars, and then search their database to see whether the drivers are current on various taxes due. If not, the driver can settle up right there. Or have their car impounded until arrangements are made. Imagine, if you will, a combination of the IRS and the DMV, with immediate police powers thrown in for good measure. Little wonder that people were objecting. Interesting to watch them at it – a bunch of cars had stopped, blocking access to the roadblock (a roadblock of the roadblock, if you will). Then people poured out of their cars and swamped the tax-checkers. Bullhorns were produced. Radio and TV crews attended. Ferguson said that it was typical.
We left, headed over to the Museo de La Plata – one of the largest Natural History museums in South America, with over 2 million artifacts relating to the continent. It is a classic 19th century style museum, and in its heyday must have been quite the thing. While the collection is still very impressive, it is clear that the exhibits are badly dated and funds for upkeep have been lacking. Even so, it was worth wandering through, and is certainly still a major destination for area schoolchildren, who were thronging the place.
On our way back we took a slight detour through a riverfront/park area which Ferguson called ‘Puerto Sur’. I am not entirely sure where this area actually is, since I have been unable to find it online. Suffice it to say that it is one of the many neighborhoods of the city, not far from the city center and adjacent to the Rio Plata, which serves as something of a park and amusement area.
Got back to the hotel early afternoon. I dropped off my bag, and went out for a bit of a stroll, stopping at one of the little sidewalk places for something akin to an Argentine gyro – a wrap with some delicious strips of beef, a few veggies and a sauce thrown in for good measure. Swung back by the hotel and connected with a friend who was joining the tour a day late, due to airline hassles. Since Alix was not yet back from her rehearsals, the two of us went out again into the madness of the city – she wanted to see a bit of it, I wanted to pick up a small English-Spanish dictionary (I was already gaining some confidence with my survival Spanish, wanted more than the simple phrasebook I had could offer).
On both trips out encountered large, wandering protests – huge things which incorporated sound cars, puppets, kettle drums, banners, and no small number of Federal Police on the sidelines, keeping a close eye on developments. It was unclear exactly what was the focus of the protest was – there were banners and chants about the usual topics of internationalization, native people’s rights, farming, banking. This recent NPR news item talked about recent protests in Buenos Aires, so that may have been the catalyst for what I saw. Such street protests are part of the culture of Buenos Aires, and so long as things are peaceful, not to be missed. Of course, they can turn violent with little warning (to outsiders, anyway), so you take your chances. I kept my eye on the cops, and so long as they seemed calm, I wasn’t too worried.
Again returned to the hotel, and met up with Alix. Our friend ML decided to go clean up a bit, take a nap and unpack, so Alix and I went down to the “English Style Pub” (well, more or less . . .) in the hotel for drinks and to chat with other members of the tour. Discovered that service, as most things related to time/scheduling in Argentina, was very . . . um, casual. Relaxed. Unhurried. As noted on Wikitravel:
Time
Argentinians generally take a relaxed attitude towards time. This can be unsettling to visitors from North America and non-Latin parts of Europe where punctuality is highly valued. You should expect that your Argentine contacts will be at least 10 to 15 minutes late for any appointment. Tardiness of 30 to 45 minutes is not unusual. This is considered normal in Argentina and does not signify any lack of respect for the relationship. Of course, this does not apply to business meetings.
If you are invited to a dinner or party at, say 9 PM, it does not mean that you should be present at 9 PM, but instead that you should not arrive before 9 PM. You’ll be welcomed anytime afterwards. Arriving to a party 2-3 hours late is normally OK and sometimes expected.
This attitude extends to any scheduled activity in Argentina. Plays, concerts usually get going around half an hour after their scheduled times. Long distance buses leave on time. As in any busy city around the world, short-distance public transportation like city buses and the subway do not even bother with time estimates; they arrive when they arrive. Factor these elements into your calculations of how long things will take.
Unannounced bus or train departures ahead of the schedule are not uncommon, especially in big cities. This is normally not a problem, as in general no one will expect you to be on time anyway.
Yup, that’s about right. For someone such as myself who considers punctuality a sign of respect, it took some getting used to.
Eventually, ML joined us again, and we hooked up with another tour member to wander down the street to an Italian place which had a good reputation. As it was only 8:30 when we got there, the place was empty – but they were happy to seat us, and our waiter went out of his way to make us feel welcome. It was one of the best meals I’ve ever had, and we took a full two hours to enjoy it, the Argentina way. Antipasto, main meal, nice dessert, drinks and coffee – an excellent meal. All told, even with a generous gratuity, it came to about $27 per person – a meal I would easily expect to pay $100 per person for in the US, if I could find one of similar quality. Sated, we wandered back to the hotel and crashed.
Jim Downey
Part One: We many, we noisy many, we band of travelers.
In spite of the fact that all the prep went well, I should have known what was in store for me on the trip. Sorry – getting ahead of myself. So to speak.
The trip to Patagonia – my first real vacation in almost three years – was going to be something of a challenge. I knew this from the time I decided that I would go along with my wife on the tour. See, it was put together because of the choir she belongs to – it wasn’t something I particularly had ever wanted to do. But I decided to go. As I put it back in January:
You probably already know about the North American Welsh Choir tour to Patagonia next October. And you may know that in return for my wife coordinating all the reservations and money and whatnot on the Choir’s end, she is getting her cost of the trip offset (in full, it looks like). Just in the last few days I’ve decided that I am going to go along.
Yeah, surprises me a bit, as well. I have no desire to go to South America. I have never had any desire to go to South America.
But my MIL is going to die soon. And late this year I should have decompressed from that, and been working hard for months being a good little book conservator, maybe an author. It will be a good time to challenge myself in a new way, get out of my comfort zone. This tour will be a good opportunity to do that. Plus my wife and I haven’t had anything approaching a real vacation in a couple of years, and we didn’t do anything to celebrate our 20th anniversary last October. So, this will serve that purpose as well.
Boy, did it. You’ll see.
Anyway, as I said, our prep for the trip went well. By the time Tuesday, Oct. 14 rolled around, we were ready to go. We’d scaled back our packing for the trip considerably from previous trips overseas, and each of us had managed to get everything we wanted to take into one suitcase per person, under 13 kilograms (call it 29 pounds). This was necessary because during the tour we’d be flying on an internal Argentine airlines which had a strict weight limit of 15 kilos. We’d gathered together all the necessary documentation, stuff to read on long flights, et cetera, et cetera. Made arrangements to have the pets cared for in our absence, mail and newspapers brought in. Cleaned out the fridge, even washed the dishes so we weren’t faced with a mess when returning home.
So when the shuttle to take us to the airport arrived ten minutes early, it only caused a mild panic. We grabbed our bags, our coats, said goodbye to the dog, and left.
We got to the Kansas City airport, and went to the check-in counter. We had burned a bunch of frequent-flyer miles for an upgrade to business class for our flights, but wanted to see if we could take an earlier flight than originally scheduled from KC to Dallas. The check-in person was very helpful, and we managed it with no problems. Better to waste time in the Admiral’s Club in Dallas than worry about making our flight. This worked as planned.
When it came time for our flight to Buenos Aires that evening, we happily got on board and settled ourselves in the spacious seats in business class (which is effectively First Class on that flight – there’s only the one premium class). Flying in business class makes everything more pleasant, in terms of the space, the food, the entertainment. Too bad I spent a large chunk of the 11 hours in the head.
Yeah, some intestinal grunge. Traveler’s Disease, before I even got out of the country. In one of those itty-bitty aircraft toilets. Actually, in three of those itty-bitty aircraft toilets, depending on which one was available at the time. Almost as much fun as having that kind of problem when confined to a porta-potty.
And that’s what I meant when I said I should have known what was in store for me on this trip. No, I didn’t get another round of TD – I was fortunate in that regard. Rather, that nothing would work out as I had hoped, and too much time would be spent crowded, uncomfortable, in a noisy small space.
So, we got to Buenos Aires. Thanks to my Lonely Planet guide, I had a good idea about the layout of the airport, and where to find an ATM and a taxi to get us to our hotel. Alix (my nickname for my wife – most people know her as Martha) and I retrieved our bags, made the pro-forma pass through customs (it’s easy to get INTO Argentina), and met up with another member of the tour who had come in on the same flight. The three of us shared a taxi. Or, rather, I should say that we shared getting sheared by a couple of the local touts who arranged for a taxi for us.
Actually, it wasn’t that bad. I knew what the official rate was supposed to be (foreigners pay a significantly higher amount for taxis than do locals – they’re wonderfully upfront about how they are screwing you over in this way). The two kids who latched onto us and then “negotiated” with the taxi driver wound up getting about the same rate, with a surcharge for the extra person going to a slightly different location (her hotel was about a dozen blocks from ours). They got a kick-back from the driver, he got the fare in front of some other taxis, and we got to our hotel feeling only slightly fleeced. Everybody was happy.
The hotel is right downtown, in Buenos Aires’ business district. Actually, quite nice. A bit on the swank side. Since it was mid-morning, our rooms wouldn’t be ready for a while, but they were happy to stow our luggage for us until we could check in. Alix and I went for a bit of an exploratory walk around downtown.
OK, we’d been traveling for about 24 hours at that point, having lost a couple of hours due to time-change in going east. And I’d spent way too much time miserable, sitting in an airplane toilet. But still, Buenos Aires struck me as . . . well, alien. Not just “foreign”, as I might describe a large unknown city in Europe. More different than that. Even though porteños consider themselves to be essentially European, this was different than any city I’ve been in. Grungier. Horrid, horrid sidewalks (seriously – you could easily break an ankle if you didn’t pay close attention where you put your feet). A crush of humanity. Touts for every single business out in the streets and pedestrian walkways pushing flyers and business cards on you, trying to grab your attention (and sometimes you, physically) for the business they represented. Loud speakers blaring advertisiments and music. Lots and lots of glitzy, flashing, obnoxious signs. Honestly, it felt like Blade Runner, without the perpetual gritty rain.
I was happy to get back to the hotel after a couple of hours of that.
We sat in the lobby as others arrived. Alix, having helped arrange the trip on the choir side, knew a lot of the people by name at least – many were pleased to meet her in person. There was much chattering and going on back and forth. I mostly smiled and sat off to the side, out of the way.
Finally, we went on a tour of the city, previously arranged. Frankly, most of the people on our bus (myself included) were almost comatose at that point, and could really care less about the various important city monuments we passed – everyone was tired from travel, wanting to get into our rooms and get cleaned up before getting dinner. But we dutifully nodded at each landmark’s history, got off the bus to admire the pink government house and stare at the riot police lining up to stop one of the daily demonstrations in B.A. Best of all, when the bus returned to the hotel, our rooms were ready.
Nice room for us, generous by European standards, moderate by American. A change, a bit of a shower, rest a while. Several stations on cable in English, with Spanish subtitles. Met back downstairs early evening for the big opening night feast.
Our buses – gods, did I spend so much time on buses – were ready, and took the lot of us over to a nice fancy restaurant for dinner. A note on this – the restaurants in Buenos Aires, in all of Argentina in fact, don’t even *think* about opening for dinner until 8:30 or 9:00. No, I am not kidding – it is one of the most significant cultural differences between here and there. Dinner is eaten late, often as late as 11:00 or midnight. And they *always* take a couple of hours for a meal. Seriously. I grew to like the longer, relaxed pace for eating. I never did get used to the idea of eating a heavy meal so late.
Anyway, the restaurant was designed as their version of an “all you can eat” place. But with the twist that everything is made to order. Well, the entrees, anyway. The way it was done was that all around the perimeter were different “stations” – one was a custom pasta station, one a custom pizza station, one an Argentine barbeque/grill, one doing sushi, one doing custom crepes (with a double metric buttload of other desserts already waiting). There was also an established elaborate and extensive salad/antipasto bar. Everything was included in the meal, except for the drinks and tips for the chefs at the individual stations. (Prices are very cheap in Argentina at present – a quart bottle of decent domestic beer is about US $4 in a nice restaurant, and an acceptible tip is AR $2 (two pesos – about US 60 cents.) The domestic wines are quite good, though they tend toward a preponderence of red wines (Merlots in particular – what they call ‘Marbec’ in Argentina). But do not try the local distilled spirits. Really – just don’t.
We ate and drank ourselves stupid over the next couple of hours, and towards the end there were introductions of the various tour leaders, guides, and whatnot. Alix got a very nice round of applause from everyone for her work coordinating things. This made it easy for me to get along with everyone on the tour – all I had to do was explain that I was her husband, and I instantly had a niche. It was towards the end of the evening that two themes emerged in my awareness which were to dominate the entire tour: one, that I was with a large group (about 60) of extrovert musicians – and the other 60 or so people on the tour were likewise gregarious Welsh who love the sound of their own voice; and two, that in addition to the non-stop, high speed conversations taking place around me, these people know and love music. During the course of dinner the din of talking got to the point of almost being painful, making it impossible to hear what people across the table were trying to say to me. Then, at the end after all the introductions were over, they broke into song. Not just a half-hearted verse of “Happy Birthday”, either – this was a full-throated, trained choir which loves to sing, along with a large number of similarly inclined Welsh (who are happy to break into song at just about any excuse). Everyone stood, and they gave their first performance in Argentina to the other patrons and staff at the restaurant – who loved it!
We finally left the restaurant about 11:00 – just when the bulk of other patrons were starting to arrive. Back to the hotel and crash, hard. It’d been a long and eventful day.
Jim Downey
Filed under: N. Am. Welsh Choir, Patagonia, Politics, Travel, Writing stuff
OK, I lied – I didn’t get back soon. Getting settled and caught up with the world is only part of the issue – another major component is that I am obsessed with politics at this point, waiting for the election to finally come to fruition. Well, that, and the fact that I am still struggling with exactly how I want to approach the travelogues from this recent trip.
See, the problem is that there were parts of it that I really didn’t enjoy. Not just this or that isolated incident that might add a bit of spark or humor to the stories – whole aspects of the trip were just unpleasant. But I don’t just want to whine or bitch through those sections of the travelogues. Nor do I want to skim over them – these are things which need to be addressed, for my own understanding and perspective if nothing else.
So, apologies. I’ve been putting off writing about anything else until I came to terms with this, and it has led me to something of a small case of writer’s block. But I’ll get over this hurdle soon – there is just too much else I want to write about.
Jim Downey
While I am on vacation, I’m having some old posts from my archives queued up for your enjoyment. If you’re interested in following the progress of the tour, a friend of mine has set up a blog and the Choir will be posting pix and text as things go.
Jim Downey
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Published in “Legacy Online” October, 2003
The Hunger Artist
the man in the box There was a man hanging in a plexiglass box over the Thames in London when I was there last month. A man who was starving himself.
David Blaine‘s recent spectacle didn’t get a lot of attention here in the States, so you may not have heard about it, though the completion of his 44 day fast was covered by NPR yesterday morning. But it captured the imagination of just about everyone in the UK, and was one of the most common topics of conversation I had with people during our two week vacation. The fact that Blaine is an American probably had something to do with this, but even so, the progress of his fast was covered regularly and extensively by all the news outlets. Reports of the analysis of his urine (done by independent labs, with the strictest security), and what it meant about his medical condition was standard fare in the papers, discussion with leading doctors about the dangers he faced the longer he fasted was a the subject of morning programs on the television. Everyone speculated about whether he was somehow cheating, how long he could last, what it meant.
I don’t know where Blaine got the idea for his fast. But Franz Kafka wrote a short-story titled “A Hunger Artist” which seems to be a template for what Blaine did. In it, the Hunger Artist would perform for 40 days to the increasing interest and agitation of the crowds, his manager selling tickets to those who wished to view the performance. If Blaine didn’t know about this story, he should have.
So, the question is, is it art? It was a performance, certainly, and I suppose that in one sense this means it was art. It was an interesting conceptual piece, a mechanism for grabbing the attention and imagination of an entire nation, so that is a kind of art. (Remember, I considered my “Paint the Moon” project of two years ago to be a piece of conceptual/performance art with the same critieria.) But in one way I don’t want it to be art. Blaine lost almost one-third of his body mass during his fast, and may well have caused permanent damage to his heart and kidneys. Would that then mean that any kind of public mutilation could be considered art? Certainly some people would pay to come and see it. People already have, actually, since this sort of ‘performance’ has already been done in some venues. So, how far do we take this? Blaine (intentionally or not) staged a real version of a Kafka short story. Could someone else stage a real version of that scene in a recent Hannibal Lecter movie where one character dines on the brain of another, while that other person is still alive? How about staging a real version of Salvador Dali’s 1936 painting “Autumnal Cannibalism” in which two figures are eating one another? Would that be art?
Been a busy few days, getting everything ready for heading to Patagonia tomorrow morning, so I apologize for the sparsity of posting. And chances are I won’t have a chance to post anything else tomorrow. However, while I am on vacation, I’m having some old posts from my archives queued up for your enjoyment. Most of it is stuff few people have seen, and hasn’t been posted here previously. Some of it is rather long – much longer than what I usually post – and I hope you’ll enjoy it.
If you’re interested in following the progress of the tour we’ll be on, a friend of mine who is going has set up a blog and supposedly the organizers will be posting pix and text from along the trail as we go. When I get back I will certainly be writing up entire thing, as I have done with most of my other trips abroad.
Even though I never got around to learning more than a few bits and pieces of Spanish, I am very much looking forward to this trip. It’s been almost three years since I have had a real vacation, and I think that this will be an important component in my ongoing recovery from caring for Martha Sr for so long. But I’ll miss blogging, and the comments I get – don’t expect responses to either comments or emails until I get back and have a day to recover a bit.
Chat with you then.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Feedback, Marketing, N. Am. Welsh Choir, Patagonia, Promotion, Publishing, Travel, Writing stuff
Well, this is post #500. Figuring that posts average about 500 words (that’s a guess, but I bet that it is pretty close), this blog has generated about 250,000 words – about twice the number of words in Communion of Dreams. Of course, even at that it has still been a whole lot less work overall than it was to write and revise the novel. And it has been a good venue for me to promote the book, as well as to explore a number of things happening in my life.
A bit about that first point: CoD has now had just shy of 12,000 downloads, and I would once again like to thank all those who have helped to spread the word. Given that this has been done entirely word-of-mouth, that’s very gratifying. In the coming weeks (once we’re back from vacation and things settle down) my wife will be taking over the job of promoting the book – I just haven’t had the emotional energy for the long slog it takes to try and go through round after round of submissions and follow-up. She’ll be a bit more removed from the thing, but still has a great desire to see it succeed. And she may decide to explore some non-conventional options for publishing and may do some guest posts here to solicit ideas and support.
In a week we’ll be going on vacation – I’ll set up the blog to automatically post some items, so those who like to stop by will find fresh content on a regular basis – but I will not be posting from Patagonia. Look forward to getting some travelogues from our trip later, though! Things might also be a bit light in terms of posting here over the next week, because I still have a lot to wrap up before we leave.
And speaking of such, I need to get busy . . .
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Bruce Schneier, Civil Rights, Constitution, General Musings, Government, Politics, Predictions, Society, Terrorism, Travel
A thought experiment for you: Consider, if you will, at what point the absurdity of “security theatre” crosses the line from the merely annoying to the actively dangerous (to our civil liberties). How would you detect such a point?
How about with a simple American flag?
Metal plates send messages to airport x-ray screeners
One of my favorite artists, Evan Roth, is working on a project that will be released soon – the pictures say it all, it’s a “carry on” communication system. These metal places contain messages which will appear when they are X-Rayed. The project isn’t quite done yet, Evan needs access to an X-Ray machine to take some photos and document. If you have access to an X-Ray machine he’s willing to give you a set of the plates for helping out.
There are two such plates shown at the site, made up as stencils carved into an X-ray opaque plate about the size of your average carry-on bag. One says “NOTHING TO SEE HERE”. The other is an American Flag.
Now, consider, what do you think the reaction would be from your friendly local airport authorities upon seeing such an item in your luggage?
Would you (reasonably, I think) expect to be given additional scrutiny? Have your bags and person checked more thoroughly? Be ‘interviewed’ by the security personnel? Perhaps miss your flight? Have your name added forevermore to the ‘terrorist list’, meaning hassles each and every time you’d try and fly in the foreseeable future?
For having a stencil of an American Flag in your luggage?
I’d say we’ve reached that point.
Perhaps we should reconsider this.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI.)
Filed under: Fireworks, Humor, Music, N. Am. Welsh Choir, Patagonia, Society, Travel
As you might recall, I’m joining my wife for the North American Welsh Choir tour of Patagonia the second half of next month. Part of that trip will include several days in Beunos Areas. So, seeing this news item this morning caught my attention:
Angry Argentine commuters torch train in rush hour
BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) – Furious rail commuters in Argentina set fire to a train on Thursday in anger over delays during the morning rush hour.
Television images showed black smoke and flames engulfing the train at the station of Merlo, in the western suburbs of the capital, Buenos Aires. At nearby Castelar, passengers hurled stones at the ticket office and blocked the rails.
“We understand that people get angry when the service is delayed or canceled, but they absolutely can’t attack a public service in this way,” Gustavo Gago, a spokesman for rail company TBA, told local television.
Now, I’m a bit of a pyromaniac. Always have been – perhaps it goes with being born of the Fourth of July. But setting fire to a train? Youza. Out of my league.
Maybe they’ll stage such an event for us tourists next month, to welcome the Choir? I’ll have to ask my wife what would be the appropriate song for them to perfom on such an occasion…
Jim Downey
Filed under: Arthur C. Clarke, Charlie Stross, Nuclear weapons, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, Space, tech, Travel, Wired
Bit over a year ago, I wrote about Charlie Stross’s pessimistic views on space colonization. Pointing out that Stross was correct in terms of the current technology curve, I said that the bigger issue was a failure to understand that forecasting breakthrough technologies is almost impossible. From my post:
The thing is, it is difficult in the extreme to make solid predictions more than a couple of decades out. In my own lifetime I have seen surprise wonders come on the scene, and expectations thwarted. Technology develops in ways that don’t always make sense, except perhaps in hindsight. 100 years ago, many people thought that commercial flight would never become a reality. 40 years ago, people thought that we’d have permanent bases on the Moon by now. You get my drift.
Everything that Charlie Stross says in his post makes sense. You can’t get to that future from here. But “here” is going to change in ways which are unpredictable, and then the future becomes more in flux than what we expect at present. For Communion of Dreams, I set forth a possible future history which leads to permanent settlements on the Moon, Mars, and Europa, with functional space stations at several other locations outside of Earth orbit. Will it happen? I dunno. I doubt that exactly my scenario would come about. But it is plausible.
And I have pretty much the exact same reaction to this item from Wired:
Rocket Scientists Say We’ll Never Reach the Stars
Many believe that humanity’s destiny lies with the stars. Sadly for us, rocket propulsion experts now say we may never even get out of the Solar System.
At a recent conference, rocket scientists from NASA, the U.S. Air Force and academia doused humanity’s interstellar dreams in cold reality. The scientists, presenting at the Joint Propulsion Conference in Hartford, Connecticut, analyzed many of the designs for advanced propulsion that others have proposed for interstellar travel. The calculations show that, even using the most theoretical of technologies, reaching the nearest star in a human lifetime is nearly impossible.
Well, yeah. And if you asked medieval blacksmiths about about building a weapon that could kill a million people instantly, they’d also say it was impossible. For them, it was. For us, it’s technology which is 63 years old as of last month.
I’m sure everyone attending that conference (professionally, anyway) knows more about rocket science than I do. And probably about any exotic propulsion technologies on the horizon as well.
But that doesn’t mean they’re right. In fact, even if they aren’t elderly, they’re very probably wrong.
And even they know it. From that same article in Wired, after saying this:
The major problem is that propulsion — shooting mass backwards to go forwards — requires large amounts of both time and fuel. For instance, using the best rocket engines Earth currently has to offer, it would take 50,000 years to travel the 4.3 light years to Alpha Centauri, our solar system’s nearest neighbor. Even the most theoretically efficient type of propulsion, an imaginary engine powered by antimatter, would still require decades to reach Alpha Centauri, according to Robert Frisbee, group leader in the Advanced Propulsion Technology Group within NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
Frisbee says this:
As for interstellar travel, even the realists are far from giving up. All it takes is one breakthrough to make the calculations work, Frisbee said.
“It’s always science fiction until someone goes out and does it,” he said.
Perzactly.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 