If you haven't seen this video, watch it. It's beautiful, no matter your political opinions. Wouldn't it be great if we had a country actually based on the equality of all people? One whose official stand condemned hatred and bigotry instead of basing its appeal on racism and extremist religiosity?
More on this later.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jjXyqcx-mYY
Please vote. Many of you are registered in Florida. You can still get a ballot by email, and fax it in before election day. Please please please vote.
And for those of you with significant others voting for McCain? Remember this simple creed: If McCain wins, my knees are closed. If McCain wins, my knees are closed.
Skype me for the tune that goes with that chant. I wrote it for a very important couple in my life who might otherwise be divided on this issue.
See? Told you I'd leave the scandal for the bottom of the posts.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Monday, October 27, 2008
A little summary of Buenos Aires...
I wrote this about a month ago while procrastinating a parcial (take-home midterm). Enjoy. Also, note that the money stuff was written BEFORE the global financial crisis. Back then I just had to worry about global warming and the chance that we'd reenter the Cold War.
Buenos Aires is a city full of people just waiting to fall in love. Or, if not love, one another’s beds. Except since students live with their parents until they finish school and can afford apartments and families of their own, most often couples fall into the soft grass of one of the city’s many parks, or grope one another in a darkened corner at an all-night dance club, or even straddle one another passionately in the broad daylight of a street corner.
These public displays of affection, anachronistic for Americans used to college dormitories and the common shame of sexiling, go almost entirely unnoticed by passersby. Occasionally an older pedestrian will smile slightly at the teenaged couple interlocked on the sidewalk, their shaggy hair covering their groping mouths, their torsos glued together, her plaid high-school uniform skirt slightly scrunched between her and the wall, their feet clad in matching Converse high-tops.
Yet this city’s touchiness, the physical attraction that its citizens seem to feel for one another and anyone else they happen to meet, extends far past its trendy youth culture. Older couples kiss passionately on crowded subways, crowded together by the press of rush hour traffic and the need to constantly be in physical contact. My 84-year old host mother laughs at the sight of two thirty-somethings clutching one another in a mostly empty subway car, her head buried snugly into the neck of his definitely-not-cashmere sweater. “Does she think if she doesn’t hold on tight someone will grab him away? You should do that to me!”
Some days I’m tempted, but I’m too cool to tell her that.
In many ways Buenos Aires reminds me of the mythology of New York in the nineties: full of sex, drugs, bad hair, and STDs. The mullet, which has for the most part fled the urban U.S., set up camp here, where it shares the title for “worst trend” with brightly colored leggings whose loosely fitted crotch hangs to the knees, multiple and/or braided and/or dreadlocked rattails, and dirty denim on dirty denim on dirty denim.
As well embracing the remnants (literally) of 90s grunge fashion, the city remains deeply enamored of late-90s American rock, prompting new Argentine friends to frequently ask us if we’ve heard of such popular icons as Nirvana or the Rolling Stones. Just in case we get confused, they’ll often hum or sing famous lyrics of the English-language songs, often with the words horrendously butchered. While the divas of Latin pop also hold sway here, most “hip” stores and cafés choose to blast old Journey or Backstreet Boys over the newest Diego Torres or Julietta Venegas. Yet since those cafés almost always offer free wireless Internet and cold Coke products, we rarely remember to complain about the evils of culture-creep.
The city’s innumerable cafés, all featuring the same coffees, croissants, greasy pizzas, and breaded chicken, are ubiquitous and essentially interchangeable. The place with your favorite empanadas is closed for the holiday? Let’s walk ten feet, we’ll find three more options. Maybe one that will sell us our café con leche for one peso cheaper.
In contrast to the post-Atkins U.S., carbohydrate-filled bread products have found a sanctuary in Argentine cuisine, along with real sugar and whole milk. Medialunas, or what the rest of the world calls croissants, are omnipresent and always delicious. Pastas of all types abound, memoirs of home popularized by the millions of Italian immigrants and, like the handburger and dulce de leche, claimed as Argentina’s legitimate offspring.
While the food is tasty, it often seems bland to Americans used to the exciting spices of Thai, Mexican, or Cajun. I miss pita bread and hummus with an almost physical ache, and when I get home I will eat a red onion a day for a month. Good luck kissing me, but after months of wimpy white onions I look forward to the strong tastes of my favorite, perhaps in an omelet with cheddar cheese, another lost food.
For Americans and Europeans, most prices here are reasonable. We’re operating at a third of the cost: we can afford to search out the rare and usually expensive Southeast Asian and Mexican restaurants when we tire of the usual fare. Of course, the food is still stubbornly unspicy, but at least the flavor combinations in our 30 peso soup are more interestingly. Similarly, we can afford to pay the often ridiculous drink prices at clubs and bars. Since many of the liquors are imported, from Absolut to Heineken, even standards such as vodka with cranberry juice can run 20-25 pesos. Where in the US we would order basic Miller Lites, here that would be a luxury import ranking in price alongside homemade brews and lagers. We drink like adults, like young professionals, like people who have a lot more money than any of us actually do. I order mohitos, my gay friends order champagne, and one of my straight guy friend orders Cosmos (he and his girlfriend saw Sex and the City earlier this year).
Salads…do not quite translate. For most of our host mothers a salad is a plate with iceberg on it, or on a good day some shredded carrot. I went to three health food stores before finding cous-cous, and orange juice can be either deliciously fresh squeezed or the Argentine version of Sunny Delight. You never know until you order. Organic food would be a joke, as is, to Argentines, the concept of recycling or serving restaurant clientele tap water. How gauche, they must think while visiting the U.S. They drink their sodas out of the bottle and eat French fries without a placemat. How dull and pedestrian. Here all soda drinkers are given class cups and straws, and full tablecloths are set out if you order anything bigger than a cookie. Then again, in the U.S. you can usually get your check within five to ten minutes of wanting it. I’ve waited here for an hour, and then it is delivered with an insouciant attitude, as if the waiter is at a loss as to why you would go to the bother of wanting it in the first place.
Deserts here are delicious, and in my opinion the reason that eating disorders are so common in this country. Argentine chocolate is like sex, like winning the lottery, like suddenly realizing that paper you kept putting off writing was never really due in the first place. When you take that first bite of top quality Argentine chocolate your whole body freezes, just for an instant. It’s like your mouth can’t believe how incredibly what you’re eating tastes, and it needs a moment to catch up. If I had to live here forever, in this country of delicious chocolates and painfully thin models, I might have an eating disorder too. As long as once a day I could eat a chocolate, it might all be worth it.
As made obvious by Buenos Aires fashion week, sex here does sell. Every billboard, whether for clothing or nightclubs or condoms or bookstores, features a naked or semi-naked woman looking seductively at those walking by, promising passion in return for a small purchase. I have never in my life seen so many lingerie stores packed into such close quarters. Each one features a sign with a woman modeling her particular brand of underwear, practically identical to her slightly darker-haired sister three storefronts over, proudly and seductively propagandizing a brand of underwear that like the models themselves seems to differ from its sibling only in color.
Most people on billboards fit the standard beauty requirements of European/ Westernized society. They are tall, thin, and scantily clad. Their hair is usually long, frequently messy. The men on billboards, and in real life, have much more facial hair and longer locks than they would on similar billboards in the U.S. Walking down the streets of the city you are bombarded by these smiling faces advertising English classes, sex shops, mp3 players, and clothing brands. In real life the citizens of Buenos Aires are shorter, but often just as thin. At the runway show I went to during fashion week the models looked much shorter and sicklier than U.S. models. They were so thin you could see their ribs through the gaping holes in their sack dress’ armpits. Their arms, the size of most people’s wrists, looked likely to shatter against the harshly colored fabric. Like with the Chinese women’s gymnastics team, I had trouble believing they fit the minimum age requirement for the work they were so seriously fulfilling.
Fashion here is a mixture of elegance and startling clunkiness: a woman’s dark-washed skinny jeans will end inches above her hideously wedged leather combat boots, sharply at odds with her elegant leather bag and manicure. Jeans run from designer skinnies to bleached and stretchy; bags, similarly, from plush handmade leather to garish silver bangles. Hairstyles here for women range from flat and lifeless to greasy and knotted, piled up on top of the head. While there is a rarity of natural blondes or people of races springing from any other continent beginning with an “A,” very few people look particularly Latin. Many of the curly haired boys and girls on the subway would, at Northwestern, be targets at sight for Hillel and Chabad recruiters.
Speaking of, there is apparently a large and religious Jewish population of the city, which I have so far seen little evidence of. There is a kosher McDonald’s at the large and hideously expensive shopping mall, thank goodness. Religious girls from my program, in an admirable effort to connect with Argentine men in contexts separate from drunkenly kissing at dance clubs, have joined an English language table at the local Hillel, which is reportedly more about socializing than praying. “But we’re the experts!” they cry, as I continue to look skeptical in the face of their claim that chatting with fledgling English speakers about their favorite sports/pastimes/old pets is actually great fun. I guess I just never bought the whole marry-a-Jewish doctor schtick, in any language.
This city, an odd blend of Paris and New York and its own innate hipster/grunge style, is often like a memory half-forgotten, or perhaps seeing someone you once knew but hadn’t seen for years. I never went through culture shock, perhaps because I was too busy being sick when I got here, but more likely because it reminds me of every city I’ve ever lived in or visited. Most people (right until they hear me speak) assume I’m a native on the basis of my dark hair and height, and at this point I rarely pull out my city map. Still, there are times when hanging out with my American friends is almost an unbearable relief, when hours in cafes inexplicably bereft of toilet paper or sudden cravings for peanut butter leave me breathless for someone to understand what it’s like to be far from home, for someone to laugh and agree that the next U.N. injunction should be a requirement for a Panera in every metropolitan area, regardless of country. Some days, when I’m annoyed or homesick or even just hungry, I’ll stop in a McDonald’s and buy fries. McDonald’s fries, like bad Chinese, are gratifyingly international.
Most days here I’m deliriously happy and frequently confused, happy to listen to flirtatious advice from my waiter or quickly reassure my cab driver that the bruises on my legs come from learning to snowboard two weeks ago, not a man who isn’t treating me right. The people of this city are, for the most part, incredibly kind, and always willing to smile over a self-deprecating remark about my quickly obvious foreignness or admitted addiction to Coca-Lite.
I’m excited for the rest of spring. (9/22)
Buenos Aires is a city full of people just waiting to fall in love. Or, if not love, one another’s beds. Except since students live with their parents until they finish school and can afford apartments and families of their own, most often couples fall into the soft grass of one of the city’s many parks, or grope one another in a darkened corner at an all-night dance club, or even straddle one another passionately in the broad daylight of a street corner.
These public displays of affection, anachronistic for Americans used to college dormitories and the common shame of sexiling, go almost entirely unnoticed by passersby. Occasionally an older pedestrian will smile slightly at the teenaged couple interlocked on the sidewalk, their shaggy hair covering their groping mouths, their torsos glued together, her plaid high-school uniform skirt slightly scrunched between her and the wall, their feet clad in matching Converse high-tops.
Yet this city’s touchiness, the physical attraction that its citizens seem to feel for one another and anyone else they happen to meet, extends far past its trendy youth culture. Older couples kiss passionately on crowded subways, crowded together by the press of rush hour traffic and the need to constantly be in physical contact. My 84-year old host mother laughs at the sight of two thirty-somethings clutching one another in a mostly empty subway car, her head buried snugly into the neck of his definitely-not-cashmere sweater. “Does she think if she doesn’t hold on tight someone will grab him away? You should do that to me!”
Some days I’m tempted, but I’m too cool to tell her that.
In many ways Buenos Aires reminds me of the mythology of New York in the nineties: full of sex, drugs, bad hair, and STDs. The mullet, which has for the most part fled the urban U.S., set up camp here, where it shares the title for “worst trend” with brightly colored leggings whose loosely fitted crotch hangs to the knees, multiple and/or braided and/or dreadlocked rattails, and dirty denim on dirty denim on dirty denim.
As well embracing the remnants (literally) of 90s grunge fashion, the city remains deeply enamored of late-90s American rock, prompting new Argentine friends to frequently ask us if we’ve heard of such popular icons as Nirvana or the Rolling Stones. Just in case we get confused, they’ll often hum or sing famous lyrics of the English-language songs, often with the words horrendously butchered. While the divas of Latin pop also hold sway here, most “hip” stores and cafés choose to blast old Journey or Backstreet Boys over the newest Diego Torres or Julietta Venegas. Yet since those cafés almost always offer free wireless Internet and cold Coke products, we rarely remember to complain about the evils of culture-creep.
The city’s innumerable cafés, all featuring the same coffees, croissants, greasy pizzas, and breaded chicken, are ubiquitous and essentially interchangeable. The place with your favorite empanadas is closed for the holiday? Let’s walk ten feet, we’ll find three more options. Maybe one that will sell us our café con leche for one peso cheaper.
In contrast to the post-Atkins U.S., carbohydrate-filled bread products have found a sanctuary in Argentine cuisine, along with real sugar and whole milk. Medialunas, or what the rest of the world calls croissants, are omnipresent and always delicious. Pastas of all types abound, memoirs of home popularized by the millions of Italian immigrants and, like the handburger and dulce de leche, claimed as Argentina’s legitimate offspring.
While the food is tasty, it often seems bland to Americans used to the exciting spices of Thai, Mexican, or Cajun. I miss pita bread and hummus with an almost physical ache, and when I get home I will eat a red onion a day for a month. Good luck kissing me, but after months of wimpy white onions I look forward to the strong tastes of my favorite, perhaps in an omelet with cheddar cheese, another lost food.
For Americans and Europeans, most prices here are reasonable. We’re operating at a third of the cost: we can afford to search out the rare and usually expensive Southeast Asian and Mexican restaurants when we tire of the usual fare. Of course, the food is still stubbornly unspicy, but at least the flavor combinations in our 30 peso soup are more interestingly. Similarly, we can afford to pay the often ridiculous drink prices at clubs and bars. Since many of the liquors are imported, from Absolut to Heineken, even standards such as vodka with cranberry juice can run 20-25 pesos. Where in the US we would order basic Miller Lites, here that would be a luxury import ranking in price alongside homemade brews and lagers. We drink like adults, like young professionals, like people who have a lot more money than any of us actually do. I order mohitos, my gay friends order champagne, and one of my straight guy friend orders Cosmos (he and his girlfriend saw Sex and the City earlier this year).
Salads…do not quite translate. For most of our host mothers a salad is a plate with iceberg on it, or on a good day some shredded carrot. I went to three health food stores before finding cous-cous, and orange juice can be either deliciously fresh squeezed or the Argentine version of Sunny Delight. You never know until you order. Organic food would be a joke, as is, to Argentines, the concept of recycling or serving restaurant clientele tap water. How gauche, they must think while visiting the U.S. They drink their sodas out of the bottle and eat French fries without a placemat. How dull and pedestrian. Here all soda drinkers are given class cups and straws, and full tablecloths are set out if you order anything bigger than a cookie. Then again, in the U.S. you can usually get your check within five to ten minutes of wanting it. I’ve waited here for an hour, and then it is delivered with an insouciant attitude, as if the waiter is at a loss as to why you would go to the bother of wanting it in the first place.
Deserts here are delicious, and in my opinion the reason that eating disorders are so common in this country. Argentine chocolate is like sex, like winning the lottery, like suddenly realizing that paper you kept putting off writing was never really due in the first place. When you take that first bite of top quality Argentine chocolate your whole body freezes, just for an instant. It’s like your mouth can’t believe how incredibly what you’re eating tastes, and it needs a moment to catch up. If I had to live here forever, in this country of delicious chocolates and painfully thin models, I might have an eating disorder too. As long as once a day I could eat a chocolate, it might all be worth it.
As made obvious by Buenos Aires fashion week, sex here does sell. Every billboard, whether for clothing or nightclubs or condoms or bookstores, features a naked or semi-naked woman looking seductively at those walking by, promising passion in return for a small purchase. I have never in my life seen so many lingerie stores packed into such close quarters. Each one features a sign with a woman modeling her particular brand of underwear, practically identical to her slightly darker-haired sister three storefronts over, proudly and seductively propagandizing a brand of underwear that like the models themselves seems to differ from its sibling only in color.
Most people on billboards fit the standard beauty requirements of European/ Westernized society. They are tall, thin, and scantily clad. Their hair is usually long, frequently messy. The men on billboards, and in real life, have much more facial hair and longer locks than they would on similar billboards in the U.S. Walking down the streets of the city you are bombarded by these smiling faces advertising English classes, sex shops, mp3 players, and clothing brands. In real life the citizens of Buenos Aires are shorter, but often just as thin. At the runway show I went to during fashion week the models looked much shorter and sicklier than U.S. models. They were so thin you could see their ribs through the gaping holes in their sack dress’ armpits. Their arms, the size of most people’s wrists, looked likely to shatter against the harshly colored fabric. Like with the Chinese women’s gymnastics team, I had trouble believing they fit the minimum age requirement for the work they were so seriously fulfilling.
Fashion here is a mixture of elegance and startling clunkiness: a woman’s dark-washed skinny jeans will end inches above her hideously wedged leather combat boots, sharply at odds with her elegant leather bag and manicure. Jeans run from designer skinnies to bleached and stretchy; bags, similarly, from plush handmade leather to garish silver bangles. Hairstyles here for women range from flat and lifeless to greasy and knotted, piled up on top of the head. While there is a rarity of natural blondes or people of races springing from any other continent beginning with an “A,” very few people look particularly Latin. Many of the curly haired boys and girls on the subway would, at Northwestern, be targets at sight for Hillel and Chabad recruiters.
Speaking of, there is apparently a large and religious Jewish population of the city, which I have so far seen little evidence of. There is a kosher McDonald’s at the large and hideously expensive shopping mall, thank goodness. Religious girls from my program, in an admirable effort to connect with Argentine men in contexts separate from drunkenly kissing at dance clubs, have joined an English language table at the local Hillel, which is reportedly more about socializing than praying. “But we’re the experts!” they cry, as I continue to look skeptical in the face of their claim that chatting with fledgling English speakers about their favorite sports/pastimes/old pets is actually great fun. I guess I just never bought the whole marry-a-Jewish doctor schtick, in any language.
This city, an odd blend of Paris and New York and its own innate hipster/grunge style, is often like a memory half-forgotten, or perhaps seeing someone you once knew but hadn’t seen for years. I never went through culture shock, perhaps because I was too busy being sick when I got here, but more likely because it reminds me of every city I’ve ever lived in or visited. Most people (right until they hear me speak) assume I’m a native on the basis of my dark hair and height, and at this point I rarely pull out my city map. Still, there are times when hanging out with my American friends is almost an unbearable relief, when hours in cafes inexplicably bereft of toilet paper or sudden cravings for peanut butter leave me breathless for someone to understand what it’s like to be far from home, for someone to laugh and agree that the next U.N. injunction should be a requirement for a Panera in every metropolitan area, regardless of country. Some days, when I’m annoyed or homesick or even just hungry, I’ll stop in a McDonald’s and buy fries. McDonald’s fries, like bad Chinese, are gratifyingly international.
Most days here I’m deliriously happy and frequently confused, happy to listen to flirtatious advice from my waiter or quickly reassure my cab driver that the bruises on my legs come from learning to snowboard two weeks ago, not a man who isn’t treating me right. The people of this city are, for the most part, incredibly kind, and always willing to smile over a self-deprecating remark about my quickly obvious foreignness or admitted addiction to Coca-Lite.
I’m excited for the rest of spring. (9/22)
Bienvenidos!
So I am starting a blog. A weblog, if you will (I won't.) Many of you will wonder why I would do such a thing, especially since the sensible time for this would probably have been when I got to Argentina, like 3 months ago.
If I had started this blog at the beginning of my study abroad experience, I could have regaled my family members, friends, and ex-boyfriends with tales of hilarious language misunderstandings, days spent searching the harsh streets for an English language bookstore, or of nights out where guys think a really sexy line starts with "So, I hear all American girls are whores.."
And yet, I did not start a blog. Partially because I wasn't entirely sure what a blog was until a couple of months ago. Partially because I'm a chronic procrastinator. And partially because when I first got here I didn't realize that this would be officially the longest I've gone since 8th grade without being regularly published in a school-wide publication.
So I'll start off slow, leaving my more scandalous revelations and pillow-talk from major government leaders until the bottom of most posts. Therefore if you're easily offended (Mom, I see you) or working for the FBI (Tasha) you know when to stop.
This, like many of my projects, will probably crash and burn. However, until then, follow. It could turn out to be amusing before the bittersweet end.
For those wondering, in Castellano (what the Argentines call Spanish), "de donde sos?" means, "where are you from?" Since I plan to talk a lot about Argentina, American politics, ugly clothes, and (maybe eventually?) my views on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it seemed appropriate. Also, if the title's in Spanish it might help convince my parents that I have a stunning career awaiting me after graduation in some sort of bilingual translational-history major relevant-industry.
No? Didn't work? Well, I guess it was worth a shot.
If I had started this blog at the beginning of my study abroad experience, I could have regaled my family members, friends, and ex-boyfriends with tales of hilarious language misunderstandings, days spent searching the harsh streets for an English language bookstore, or of nights out where guys think a really sexy line starts with "So, I hear all American girls are whores.."
And yet, I did not start a blog. Partially because I wasn't entirely sure what a blog was until a couple of months ago. Partially because I'm a chronic procrastinator. And partially because when I first got here I didn't realize that this would be officially the longest I've gone since 8th grade without being regularly published in a school-wide publication.
So I'll start off slow, leaving my more scandalous revelations and pillow-talk from major government leaders until the bottom of most posts. Therefore if you're easily offended (Mom, I see you) or working for the FBI (Tasha) you know when to stop.
This, like many of my projects, will probably crash and burn. However, until then, follow. It could turn out to be amusing before the bittersweet end.
For those wondering, in Castellano (what the Argentines call Spanish), "de donde sos?" means, "where are you from?" Since I plan to talk a lot about Argentina, American politics, ugly clothes, and (maybe eventually?) my views on life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it seemed appropriate. Also, if the title's in Spanish it might help convince my parents that I have a stunning career awaiting me after graduation in some sort of bilingual translational-history major relevant-industry.
No? Didn't work? Well, I guess it was worth a shot.
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