Yesterday Here

Yesterday was an eventful day here.


First, it was the national census, which is done live. It was a national holiday and everyone had to stay home and wait for the census-taker to show up. There were 650,000 of them across the country. Each one was paid 250 pesos (about $60) for a day's work, which is not bad here.

My cencista showed up just after noon. I told her right away that I'm foreign, so didn't know if I should participate, but she said sure. It was a brief form, maybe 25 questions. The usual stuff (age, education, number of rooms, etc.) I did very well answering the questions, except for one that I didn't understand about what the roof of the building is made of (I couldn't answer that in New York in English either, actually.)

So, I've been counted in two censuses (censi?) this year, which is clearly over-representation, but pleases me nonetheless.

Afterwards, I walked to Martha's (most public transportation was shut down, as were all businesses.) The streets were mainly empty, except for the census-takers, with their white census bags and forms.



The census alone would have made for a memorable Wednesday, but earlier in the morning came the news that Nestor Kirchner had died of a massive heart attack. (Mickey's first response: "Did they count him in the census?" To which later in the day one station actually reported that yes, they did.) He was popular, moreso than Cristina, and was almost certainly going to run for president again in the next election. At just 60 years old, his death was a sad moment even for his opponents. I don't get much of Argentinian politics, but people seem to mainly agree that he was an energetic and devoted leader.

People mobilize very quickly here. As his body was being flown up from Patagonia to Buenos Aires, people were already starting to gather in front of the Casa Rosada. Several of my friends went there last night (I decided against going—crowds make me squirrelly, and political crowds that I don't understand even moreso.) There will be three days of national mourning.


During the night, these posters were printed and plastered all across the city. ("Forever Nestor. Be strong, Cristina.")


And then, some time after that, someone added those little paper tags you see all over the place here, in phone booths, on building walls, and on advertisements. They're little take-away flyers for call-girls. The more things change...

Book Lust

So I'm going to a housewarming tonight at a friend of a friend's. The host has just finished renovating two apartments, so it'll be a movable feast from one to the other. He's asked that instead of wine or cheese or whatever, people bring used books, which will be used in the apartments.

I love the idea, but when I looked through my bookshelf here I couldn't find anything I was willing to part with. So a quick stroll through some of the bookstores on Corrientes and I had way too many choices. I bought a cheap collection of Argentine comics from the 50s (I have the same book in my apartment here) and a sweet little copy of the Odyssey (in Spanish, natch). Then I found this, which I just couldn't resist buying for myself, even though I'm trying not to buy unnecessary things.


For a mere $1.50, this seemed quite necessary. It's got not only a great cover, but is chock full of the most gruesome diagrams. The thought of young Argentine boys poring over the pages of this grim how-to guide makes me shiver with a ghoulish nostalgia. And of course it reminds me of when my brother Rob (then Robby) took a taxidermy class at the local Natural History Museum. The main project was stuffing a rat. As I recall, his final result was a mitigated success. He didn't add quite enough stuffing, so it was a little sunken and floppy. He also got in trouble with Mom for boiling the rat carcass in one of her good pots.

Colón, Again

I went to the Teatro Colón again this week. My second time since it reopened in May, but the last time we had seats in the Cazuela, an upper ring, and had to enter through a side door, so we didn't get to see the entire spectacular lobby. This time I splurged on a pricier ticket. The sound is the same (great), but the experience is rather different. It's one helluva theater.


That's the moon, not a streetlight, by the way. Anyway, I entered my box in the third ring (Palcos altos) through a private door. Here's the first view you get.

Every box has an entrance foyer, where you can hang your coats.


Those are the boxes to my left. The six seats in each box are unnumbered and you better get there early because the view from the front seats is fine, but the view from behind must be pretty lousy. Lots of people were standing behind the front-seat sitters. (As you can see, I did get there early enough to grab a front seat. Phew. I'd be cranky if I had to stand after paying that much for a ticket.)

The curtains are baroque and lovely.


Here's a view from my box.


At intermission, I walked down two levels and wandered around the glorious halls. Stuff like this:


A fine night at the opera. Oh, the operas? Two early 20th-century oddities, Zemlinsky's A Florentine Tragedy (based on a short story by Oscar Wilde) and Korngold's Violanta, chosen because they'd never been done at the Colón before and they wanted to do some premieres during their reopening season. The Korngold was lusher, more romantic (and over-heated, but in a fun way. Hard not to hear adolescent hormones pounding when you know he wrote the opera when he was 17); the Zemlinsky an intense 3-person chamber opera that has a great pair of final lines, Oscar Wilde's pervy idea of an O. Henry twist. An older merchant husband has been quite dismissive of his wife throughout. Nonetheless, he finally gets jealous enough to strangle her lover, the Prince. She's been hoping the Prince would kill her hubby for the whole opera, but now that the deed is done:

Wife: Why didn't you tell me you were so strong?
Husband: Why didn't you tell me you were so beautiful?

They climb over her lover's corpse to kiss. Curtain.