Introductions

I've been to a couple of events lately which came with helpful introductions. People here seem much more open to the idea of someone teaching or guiding you at the beginning of an event. In many instances, they even expect it. I like this. Shows a healthy respect for learning. I think the general attitude in the States is "Oh, I know enough already, just get on with the show."

First was a chamber music concert at the Casa de Catalunya, a lovely building in San Telmo. Lydia and I were waiting in the lovely lobby, when all of a sudden, waiter started passing out free soda and tapas. Turns out the concert came with appetizers--including a very tasty ceviche. I tried one (or more) of everything. Lydia wouldn't try anything at all--said she had eaten a late lunch. So I felt like I used to at Hamilton receptions, when we would all pig out on the appetizers because they were better than the cafeteria fare.


Before the concert, a young man comes out and gives a brief but informative introduction to the first work--Mozart's "Dissonance" quartet. He was just right--didn't give an annoying interpretation, but talked about the how Mozart used the quartet form. Then after the intermission, he came back and introduced the (really excellent) Dvorak string quartet. The players were from Cordoba, excellent and passionate. Their encore was a marvelous Piazzola piece.


A couple days later I went to this nice little library in Recoleta for a free movie, El dependiente, from 1967 by a famous Argentine director, Leonardo Favio. The screening was in a beautiful wood-paneled reading room and once gain, an informative young man come out and talked about the movie in context of Favio's career and films of the time.


The movie was interesting but, alas, typical of its era, the sound quality was abysmal. Luckily, I had read a pretty full synopsis of it beforehand. Otherwise, I'd have been lost. The microphones and other sound equipment in Argentina up until the last decade were pretty lousy, so going to old movies is always a risk.


That's the actual title screen--very casual. About a hardware store clerk in a small pampas town who's waiting for the owner to die so he can inherit the shop. He falls in love, in a manner of speaking, with a quiet young girl. The movie is mostly his courtship of her, all of which takes place at her house with her very strange mother and semi-retarded brother nearby. The movie is tonally odd, to say the least. The lead actor had an almost Peter Lorre-like intensity. I was glad to see it.


Especially because a few nights later, Martha and I went to see a play that I loved, called El pasado es un animal grotesco (The Past is a Grotesque Animal) and a funny scene featured one of the characters having an interview with Leonardo Favio. Which proves that the more things you do, the more connections you find.