Sodom and Gomorrah
Ezequiel Zaidenwerg, “Lyric Poetry is Dead”
an excerpt….
Lyric poetry is dead.
And though I pleaded
many times for God to kill her
and end my suffering,
I now remember her with bittersweet
nostalgia.
It happened many years ago:
tired of the chaos of the city,
I fled the Capital and took my family
to a small village, isolated in the middle
of the prairie.
The early months
passed happily, unhurried,
among the lethargy of work,
domestic life, and the continual
siestas.
On weekend afternoons,
we’d go to walk around the park
and nod our heads in greeting, always
to the same drowsy faces
whose eyes would brighten only
if someone shared a bit of gossip
with superficial malice.
My sons –as was
expected– were the first
to grow accustomed to that life: they quickly
struck up friendships with the locals,
mingling so closely they could almost be
mistaken for each other, amid the banter
over beer, cars, football, women. As for the others
–my wife, my daughters, and myself–
the adjustment was a bit more difficult,
despite the mildness of the climate,
except for the humidity.
In any
case, such tranquil days
would have to end eventually:
in early autumn, I began to notice
that, underneath the weary plainness
of that provincial folk, there lay concealed
a deviance I wouldn’t want
to find myself required to detail.
And so
our mutual distrust took root;
at first, from our side only,
but it didn’t take them long
to notice it: a slant about the smile,
a lowering of the gaze
in greeting.
As months went on
and days grew shorter,
the strain grew stronger, though
it wouldn’t openly reveal itself
until the winter.
It was
a night of bitter cold. By chance,
some relatives had come to visit
from the city. All seated
at the table, we were sharing
the meat, the bread, the wine, and suddenly
we heard a knock at the front door: we opened it
to find the entire town outside,
assembled at our entrance.
One of the neighbors, who appeared to be
the leader of the angry
mob, demanded:
“Where are
the ones who came tonight to see you?
Bring them, so we can meet them.”
I left the house and closed the door behind me
and begged them all to leave,
but they just sneered:
“And did you really think
that you could come here from the city
to tell us what to do?”
My daughters, seeing
that my efforts were in vain,
leaned out the door and offered,
in exchange for leaving us alone,
to go with them, but even so
they would not be persuaded.
Within the house, my relatives reached out
their hands and, pulling me inside again, closed
the door tightly.
Meanwhile, outside, the townspeople
attempted to tear it down; and others
clutched the metal bars protecting
the windows, making faces
and threatening gestures; they would have
taken us as prisoners, or maybe
something worse, if the unexpected
hadn’t then occurred:
a midnight sun
all of a sudden rose above the plains,
and it was day. Dazzled,
the rabble paused a moment
in their violence; a gentle rain
began to fall,
and from inside we saw the people
raising their hands, receiving it
with joy, and then they started, one by one,
to shed the clothing on their
backs.
And so, the men with naked
torsos, the women in their bras,
they suddenly began to dance
despite the intensifying rain,
although there was no music. The steam
fogged up the windows more
and more, until we could see
nothing from inside. The light
outside appeared to strengthen
and then we felt abruptly that the heat
was rising faster:
we watched enormous raindrops
run down the windowpanes, now clouded over,
our bodies drenched in sweat;
meanwhile, the rain resounded, making it
impossible for any sound
outside to reach us.
All this continued for an hour, an hour and a half.
And then we felt the heat begin to drop,
and all at once the lights went out.
I opened the door hesitantly;
an icy wind struck hard. I found my coat
and stepped into the night, dimly illuminated
by the moon: upon the site
where, moments earlier, had stood a town,
I saw a field of ashes
and the soil itself gave off
a vaguely sweet aroma.
Without delay,
I gathered up my family and we set out,
not really knowing where we’d go;
once we had left behind, at last,
those devastated bounds
that had contained the village, my wife
looked back; with teary eyes
and faltering voice,
she said to me:
“The smoke is rising from the ground
as from an oven.”
Seeing her stiff,
I struck her hard
to force her to react.
We reached the road
soon after and we followed it,
walking for several hours,
until at last we could make out
the poorly lighted sign of a gas station.
From there we used the phone to call for help
from other relatives, who came
by noon to rescue us; so
we commenced our journey to the city,
from which we’d never move
again.
Time passed. And with its passing,
habit
did its work: resentment toward
the prior horror soon became forgetfulness;
forgetfulness submitted to the daily chores
of wanting what was missing, which consumed
my days.
And yet, I’m often wakened
in the night by the distressing sense
that they, the people of the town, were acting
to defend some kind of love exactly like
my own, and I’m tormented by the certainty
that it was all for nothing:
renouncing
both the others and ourselves,
to keep on living
just like always,
just
like in any other place.
not terribly flattering, but thank you american apparel for the effort?
Cenotes, Yucatan, Mexico
(Source: doesnteverybodywanttofallinlove, via driftingfocus)
to every last inch.
Just found out that our street name is derived from the famous yacht, Dulcibella, from literary history, circa 1903 ‘The Riddle of the Sands’—one of the first modern English thrillers.
Boom.
Boludoso
I went to the countryside/La Provincia these past few days to stay with friends at the house of a friend of a friend called Floppy. Floppy…is a character, more on this later.
After a long train ride from Palermo to Pilar, during which my friend and I gave impromptu English lessons to her Porteño on how to pronounce words like ‘would’, we departed the train and into the chilly, muddiness that is greater Buenos Aires. Greeted by Floppy at the bus station, we hail a remise (like a cab, but cheaper) and set off for the country home. Meanwhile, within, a few seconds of arriving in Pilar, Floppy takes a liking to me and my ‘authentic’ Russian fur cap (okay, maybe just me, not gonna lie). I had been warned about Floppy’s tendencies just moments before with an ‘ojo’ from my friend. Into the cab we go!
We arrive to the house, and are greeted by a swarm of perros first at the gate, then a bundle of young fashionista porteñas who Jess and I have incidentally been drunk with before (reoccurring theme). We enter the home, meet the bilingual parrot, and start drinking. I am assigned bar-lady duties…why, I’m not so sure, because my proportions are iffy at best since 12th grade chemistry… I liberally pour fernet into vasos that have definitely seen brighter days, adding a splash of coca-cola from the glass bottle (this tastes better in LAmer, don’t ask me why), to produce the all-telling toxic foam concoction that marks that, you friend, are indeed drinking something other than a soft drink.
Fast forward a few hours, after a food coma, and much more linguistic comfort instilled….People start becoming nekked. This is not uncommon for me, a Californian that whose alma mater that is referre to affectionately as: UCSC/ University of Casual Sex and Cannabis. But yet, it was interesting to observe how comfortable Latinos are with their own bodies and around their friends, even new ones. I did not partake, partially because it was freezing, and partially because I didn’t want to, but it was nice to see liberalism for once in this place, after living in such an uptight neighborhood with octogenarians for the last few months.
The next day, my friend and I make french toast for our fellow ‘Americanos’, and some really funky syrup which never became the right consistency. Ah well, we tried.
We adventured in the campo after eating, and climbed through swampy almost marsh land, until we arrived upon a mystical sight: a hollowed grove of 30 beautiful Arabian horses. It was unreal. They were just grazing peaceably in this large grassland encircled by forest, and they all were extremely healthy and with shiny coats. I try approaching this large black classic Arabian, but he retreats timidly, and starts alarming his other horse friends that people are coming. Unsure of how really big, secluded horses react to people trying to pet them, we decide to walk back a little bit and make our way towards a really old bridge that supports defunct train tracks. !RE LINDO!
We return to the casa, and then on to Moron, another city just outside of Buenos Aires to hang out for the night. All in all, it was refreshing to be out of the city for a bit, to breathe something fresh, and to meet new, interesting people. :)
Hacer la RATA
Today, I’m playing hooky, although for good reasons.
I need to catch up on news, happenings, what the hell. I didn’t even realize that Libya was being bombed by the US.
I’m also securing an internship with a vague, economically focused start-up company, ENI, which handles ‘collaborative markets’ (negocios inclusivos) and is affiliated with Universidad Torcuato di Tella. I’m thinking this could be a euphemism for a trade group, or something along those lines.
Ah, too much to share otherwise. The moon was so large the other night, my friends and I went to Parque las Heras in the middle of the city to drink and watch the moon. We met a group of Colombians studying various things here at UBA {medicine, anthropology, ethnomusicology, fashion} who had guitars, a cuatro, and a harmonica-piano-flute thing. We made music and sang Bob Marley, and they showed us how to dance cumbia colombiano. Really cool kids, and hoping that we can find them somehow in the future.
Paz y Amor.
revisiting americana por CheChe
It’s really odd hearing your country’s history relayed to you from the perspective of a ninety year old Argentine bisabuelo (A tribute to the numbers exam we had today, ninety=noventa).
A little on this man and his life.
Pedro ‘Che Che’ Brest is one of the most interesting dinner conversationalists I’ve ever encountered. Every night, as we sit at the table, digesting pasta or milanesa or another carb product (use your imagination here, you can insert pizza, corn, rice…go wild) a throaty ‘Mira’ announces his desire to refocus my attention to a point he will construct. These rants are typically awesome, and I’ll tell you why.
The man is opinionated, but in an ancient manner that marries tact and charm. As per his lifetime profession (he was a hairdresser for women, ‘coiffeur para damas’, he always says) he takes in perspectives, digests them a bit, but without the sort of absolutism that assumes one is superior to the other. Everybody in media highlights that Argentina’s national sport is football, but I beg to differ, their natural sport is the solid conversation.
I can’t afford to argue with the man unless it’s a subject that has a lot of natural cognates in English. Economics, politics, science, nature…these are all good points to try.
Tonight, we dabbled in Americana, as ‘Che Che’ loves Gary Cooper, Humphrey Bogart, Inga Bergman, and Julia Roberts (don’t ask). The pronunciation of Anglo-Saxon names in Castellano is just the tip of the iceberg of adorable things spouting from this mans boca. Oh yes, these actors and actresses are usually listed off in laundry list fashion, his doing, not mine.
‘ghhariCoober’ (guttural, then rushed towards the end of the phrase)
‘Humpvree! yougarr’ (the first name declared like a Eureka, the second, like the milk product)
Inga Bergman…yah, can’t even begin to transcribe this one
‘Jewleah ROBERS’ (he gets super stoked on the last name, because it sounds like Roberto…and then he always smiles wide and says that she is a ‘muy linda mujer’. I always find her placement in the list as a bit awk. I mean, the man is 90, what is Julia, like 40 maximum? That is one serious age divide. Gotta love Latinos, they will always try.
I think I’ll just resign this blog as a relaying of my life, and reassign it to a retelling of all of my dinner talks…maybe for a while at least. Too much for one post, but one last thing. After he and I finish a chat, we end with either a:
‘Virry Machinudo’ (en lunfardo, first part is English, second meaning COOL)
or ‘Hasta Tomorrow’
Spanglish Rules. Or, since Argentinos don’t call Spanish=espanol, but Castellano, I guess it is Castellyinglish. I’ll work on that a bit.
Chauuuu
