Wednesday-Thursday in Buneos Aires... Wednesday evening I had a romantic assignation that started by meeting L. (who is a private person who DETESTS Facebook) at the corner of Callao and Uruguay, one block from the Callao subte stop. Callao is pronounced ka-shau (ryhming with German frau) in Porteño dilaect, and the name sounds very pretty when announced on the subway. It sounds as smooth as chocolate mousse in the mouth of a sultry Argentine brunette with big dark eyes.... I had never exited at this particular Subte stop, and I was immediately struck again with the vastness of this city, because there was another whole world of splendid French Empire style edifices, cupolas and iron balconies and parks and bakeries and restauraunts with beautiful neon signage, etc., etc. that I had never seen before, stretching as far as the eye could see. Every block, seemingly, bursting with cafes and little shops and maxikioskos with pinwheels and racks of sunglasses and little flashing signs... After stopping in a little store to buy tango CD´s, L. and i cabbed it down to San Telmo to eat in her favorite Cuban retsaurant, but it was not yet open, so we ended up in the little old-timey cafe-bar (not Bar Federal but near there) where we drank a litre of Heineken and shared a Tarta and two flan caseras that were incredibly good....a homeless-looking lady stopped in and sang two sad tango songs for tips from the clients. Her singing was not good, but effective nonetheless and of course we tipped her. You even fall into the tourist trap willlingly here. After dinner, we continued on to Club Buenos Aires, on Calle Peru, to dance and see El Afronte which I assume means The Affront in Spanish. El Afronte is a tango orchestra consisting of four bandoneons, three violins, I think two stand-up basses (or maybe a bass and a cello?) a piano, and a cantador. They are all young folks who dress in t-shirts and some of them have unkempt hair. I had seen them twice before at this place (their regular venue) and the performance is very stagey, with dry ice smoke effects, and a colorful light show so that the performers are silhouetted now in cobalt blue, now in crimson, now with strobe lights, etc., and the lights often cut off dramatically on the last beat of the song. What they do is play traditonal tango songs, very loud in a very forceful strident style with a lot of disonance, like they are trying to blend heavy metal with traditonal tango. Before, I was impressed, but this time it just seemed to me that they were butchering the songs, basically stripping them of everything beautiful and melodic. And I am not sure that there is a point to this, but they have their fans. In fact, most of the attendess are NOT tango dancers, but kids who come to drink beer and sit at little dark metal tables and listen to the music, not DANCE to it. But there IS a dance floor there, albeit a ravaged one where a woman in heels could break an ankle, and folks DO get up to dance. But, I think the music is basically undanceable...I at any rate had no desire to dance to it (although they played all recognizable and normally danceable tango classics). L. said, l don´t like this at all! and we only danced in-between the live sets, to the standard DJ´ ed music (she changed into her sandals after the first tanda to avoid injury). So...not to trash El Afronte, but I don´t quite understand their raison-detre, except PERHAPS that they get a few young folks to make the cross-over from rock-n-roll to tango obsession. They play (and the singer sings) with alot of energy, and the bandoneon players seem to be very talented, all four of them. But when I watched the people who ventured onto the dance floor during the live sets, it looked ridiculous because the dancing did not (and I think COULD not) match the music, since the music was essentially atonal. A modern dancer would do a better job, but these tangueros soldiered on, and I actually felt myself BLUSHING for them, although my blush was of course undetectable in the darkness. It could be said that what El Afronte does best is to take a tango song and strip it of everyhting melodic and danceable. And that was an afront so they lived up to their name. All in all, however, L. and I had a good time, and the darkness served us well as a night canopy. The following day (Thursday) I accompanied our entire tour group on a daytrip via ferry across the river Plate to Uruguay, to the charming little town of Colonia. At first, i was merely sufferring the trip, and when we hit the first store, I remarked to Lesley that I wanted to buy a t-shirt that said I visited Uruguay and all I got was this crappy t-shirt! But It was a beautiful day and I gradually warmed to the place, and soon enough I espied a very tall and thin, soulfull looking Uruguayan who looked like Jesus, except with even bushier hair, who stood behind a little table with (apparently) his more Native-Indian-looking wife, displaying their wares of traditonal Uruguayan hand-manufacture, i.e. bracelets and rings and necklaces.. They were so modest and friendly, and the prices so low, and the craftwork so good, that it was a pleasure to buy from them. I bought (for L.) a pretty little woven purple string necklace from which hung a shard of amythest enlcosed in a little net, that looked like something from The Dark Crystal. It was anything BUT a tourist trap and therefore the ultimate tourist trap for descrimitating buyers like myself who dislike the mainstream tourism of souvenier shops with cheap gee-gaws and t-shirts, etc. I was reminded of another Kierkegaard quote, the best trap is when you set your snare with NOTHING, because Uruguayan Jesus and his handsome woman were so quiet and unassuming and didn´t bark their wares but stood patiently behind their sad-looking little beat-up metal table. By and by, after our little group had made their purchases, Kelly asked Jesus for a lunch recommendation, and He directed us to a place where we ordered platters of Chivitas, a Uruguyaun sampler plate, so to speak, consisiting of papas fritas, salad, ensalada Russe (potato salad), thin slabs of meat that looked like the soles of shoes, but were tender, topped with ham & eggs. And later after strolling through some lovely tree-lined ancient cobblestone streets lined with massive plane trees, I ditched the group to join a lone female tourist from Massachussets at a shady table where we killed two giant bottles of the local generic horse-piss beer (not Quilmes but I guess the Uruguayan equivalent) before re-embarking on the ferry. And later that night, on to milongas at Gricel and La Viruta, which were not especially remarkable so I will forego describing them. Tonight is Halloween and the last nigth for most of our tour group memebrs. Below: a Youtube video of El Afronte. youtube/watch?v=F2svCHk9ZO4
Posted on: Fri, 31 Oct 2014 20:14:26 +0000
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