I May as Well Write a Novel.

This is going to be a long one, just to let you know.

Saturday. I had arranged to meet Cristina and Allison at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes (or NAMBLA). Just kidding, that’s a recurring joke from The Daily Show, skip it if you don’t understand/care; it’s not particularly funny. The actual acronym is MALBA, I think, though where they’re getting some of those letters from is beyond me. (Edit: Just kidding, MNBA and MALBA are two different art museums in Buenos Aires. Sorry!)

Anyway, I had planned to meet them at noon, but I could only force myself to wake up at eleven thirty, so I got there at 12:15, at which point they were nowhere to be found. (Tally number three). So I stood there for a while, called a few people to see if they had their numbers (they didn’t), and then wandered around until I found an internet café, where I could look them up on the list of students’ cell phone numbers that the COPA people had e-mailed us. Anyway, turned out they were already inside the museum, so I went and joined/found them eventually, and we looked around, and that was when I saw the freakiest picture I’ve ever seen in my life. I copied down the information on the card next to it in the hopes that I could find it in the future online or something, though I don’t know if that’s going to happen. I do not know what most of it means.

“La Crucifixión de Cristo”

Anónimo

taller de Lucas Cranach

Escuela Alemana

óleo sobre tabla

85,5 x 62 cm

inventario 8632

donación Hirsch, 1983

But anyway, it was this super creepy picture of the crucifixion that seemed almost a parody. The faces were so exaggerated that one wanted to laugh, that is, until one saw the nails and the blood. But the anguish seemed so feigned that it looked almost like some masquerade, some poor actors cast in the roles and gone giggly with their first experience on stage, trying to make up for it with overbearing melodrama, something like that. It was very, very strange, that vacillation between the ludicrous and the horrible. It was really disturbing - mesmerizing and grotesque, and therefore incredibly fascinating.

Edit: Okay, I found it on their website, but you can't really see the facial expressions that really make the picture. But here it is:

After that, I looked around some more, but nothing really mattered, although there were, I suppose, some cool early photographs. And, I mean, I didn’t see the entire museum. But anyway, we left. Here’s a photo of the museum:

Why they would choose such a hideous color is beyond me, unless it’s the same cows’ blood thing as the Casa Rosada (which I doubt). Outside the museum, strangest juxtaposition ever (trees, building, statue) -- strangest, that is, until later in this post. But you will hear about that soon, don't worry.

Anyway, afterwards we lunched and wandered about for a while. I bought a scarf. They went home. I wandered around some more, looking in general, but also looking for a café with WiFi near my house (I know I saw one on Ecuador street, but I don’t remember the intersection…) A man stopped me and asked me where I was from. I wasn’t even talking. (Well, clearly, as I was alone.) How was I so apparently a foreigner?! A mystery, to be sure.

Tally number four comes with a story. We were supposed to be at the theater at 8:45. It looked about equidistant from my house as the University, so I left at 8:00. I walked across the street to buy a pack of gum (“Beldent Splash” sugarfree apple-raspberry flavored; it’s delicious) to get change to take the bus. I thought the bus would be on Paraguay street. So I turned left, and wandered around looking for a stop. Nope. So I turned back around and wandered right, still nope. So I returned to my Guía T (the aforementioned handy map booklet) and realized that it would have turned off of Paraguay farther west, and that the closest stop to me would be on Viamonte - two streets south. Oops. So I headed there, and finally found the stop marked with a 29. It was 8:35, ten minutes before we were supposed to get to the theater. I waited. And waited. And waited. The bus finally arrived at 8:50, five minutes after we were supposed to get there. So then I was sitting on the bus, waiting, waiting, waiting, and finally the driver kindly told me where I should get off and what direction I should head (I had inquired earlier, giving him the street name I was looking for). I walked six blocks, and finally arrived at the theater … at 9:30, 45 minutes after I had intended. However - guess what! - everyone was still waiting outside, because apparently it only started at ten. I thought for sure I’d miss at least part of it, but nope, I stood there waiting with the rest of them for a few minutes before being let in. Nevertheless, tally four. The next one will be diagonal.

Anyway, the reason we were going to the theater in the first place was in order to see a musical, El Fulgor Argentino, a retelling of Argentina’s history through a look at a fictional club from 1930 to 2030. Super interesting premise, I mean, really - you combine political humor with musical theater, and you’ve got me hooked. Unfortunately, it was in Spanish, so there were two barriers to understanding it - a knowledge of the language, and a knowledge of Argentine history, neither of which I’m particularly good at. The majority of it therefore went over my head, but it was still really cool. There was an onstage band for parts of it, and the saxophonist was really, really good. And I thiiiink he also played the flute at one point (I mean, there was definitely a well-played flute somewhere in there, but I’m not 100% positive it was him playing it), and definitely sang. Crazy talent. After the show we went backstage and saw where they make masks and puppets (which are a big part of their theater, and of the other show they do in particular, I believe; not so much the one we saw, though they were still occasionally involved). I have photos:

El Fulgor Argentino (the name of the club):

Then we got to go backstage. The theater (which is run by all local people, not really professionals, but they were still really good) is very into puppets:

And masks:

They used these enormous (life-sized) puppets in El Fulgor Argentino. It was a pretty neat effect:

After the show, the saxophonist (who, you remember, was amazing) came over and talked to us, and invited us to go out with them (probably because he was enamored of a certain person whose privacy I'll try to maintain here; that seemed to be a common theme of the weekend, what with her being a dancer and therefore super popular at the tango thing too. Other common themes, involving me: “I don’t understand.” “I don’t know.” “[Awkward silence].” …Sigh…)

But anyway, three of us ended up going out with the saxophonist (Julián), his brother Andrés (who attends UBA studying history, so he’s actually in the same building as us at certain times during the week), and two other people from the show whose names I forget, to this place. It was basically a house, I guess, although I guess it functioned as some sort of bar/club/something. The walls and lights were all red, and there were creepy pictures of skulls and death on the walls. On the screen next to the bar was playing a video to correspond with the music. The music was American popular stuff (cultural imperialism, cultural imperialism, cultural imperialism), and the screen was, well, American stuff too more or less, but creepy pasty happy stuff from the 50’s, you know what I mean? I mean, just the juxtaposition of the “KLUB KILLER rock” sign and the stark red and black aura of the place with the blandly colorful screen of eerily jolly people from the fifties…I mean, it was a really cool (and intriguingly creepy) atmosphere, I thought. I feel like others disagreed, but then, perhaps my morbid streak runs deeper than most.

Unfortunately, I couldn’t really make the best of this crazy cool place, as (ironically) Julián’s brother Andrés disappeared with the aforementioned person (well, to the next room, so it wasn’t so much disappearance as abandonment, but remember the recurring themes?), and Julián too disappeared, I think to start hardcore making out with this other girl. Well, by "think," I mean "know" - he was more or less right behind me. I was therefore left with Cornelia and the Man with Curly Hair who Never Smiled and Rarely Spoke - who along with Julián was part of the show's onstage band. His status as a Man with Curly Hair who Never Smiled and Rarely Spoke was a shame (well, perhaps not the curly hair part), because based on what he told me (he plays the bass and accordion and used to play the piano, exhibited an interest in politics, is studying multimedia art at UBA, and likes languages - German, English, a little French - and computers) we had a reasonable amount in common. I mean, that’s all I ever got him to say, though. I don’t know. Awkward silence awkward silence awkward silence. And the fact that I had to ask everyone to repeat things like five million times because I suck at understanding Spanish didn’t help, I’m sure. Recurring themes, recurring themes.

And, I mean, another obvious barrier between us and them was the whole social class thing - I mean, the theater was in a pretty sketchy part of town, and they all live around there, and I mean, we'd talk about traveling and such - because, I mean, that's what you do when you're in a different country -, and they could only be like, "oh, I've never been out of Argentina" - which is fine, you know, but you could tell they were a little wistful/envious, so that was awkward too.

So yeah, we hung around there forever, being rather bored but not wanting to spoil the fun aforementioned girl and Andrés were having. (Well, I guess it ended up being more “Will you kiss me?” “Sorry, I have a boyfriend.” “Well, here are three philosophical reasons why you wouldn’t really be cheating on him.” “Sorry, nope.”)

Eventually the three of us shared a taxi back. Then sleep. And, not gonna lie, all of Sunday was spent writing up these blog entries, through the next one after this. That’s it, that’s all I did, all day. It took forever. You, my loyal readers, had better appreciate it. (There’s got to be a more efficient way to do this. Oh, wait, I know - actually write stuff up daily instead of waiting a week and a half!)