last night i stepped to my balcony to smoke a cigarrette. from a lower window in the block of the apartment building opposite where i stood, a dim light buzzed through the six inches of the window's shudder that had been left open. through the small space i could see the bare lower thighs, knees, and calves of a man sitting at the edge of a bed, adjacent to a night table on which sat the lamp which gave this scene it's color. the skin on the man's legs was chafed and red, toward reptilian, with some stringy white hairs. two [View Full Entry]

---

---

Tengo un raro surtido de amigos en estos últimos meses de mi vida. Como extranjero, conocer a gente es generalmente un asunto del azar. Un kiosquero, el hombre que cuida el edificio que está al lado del mio, la chica que me pide direcciones en vano, todos los desconocidos tienen la misma posibilidad de convertirse en amigos, si tengan un poco de tiempo y paciencia. De esa manera que conocí a Javier, esperando un colectivo en Plaza Once. Aunque en ese momento yo no podía decirle si el 118 estaba pasando o no, sí podía decirle que la tardanza de [View Full Entry]

---

---

i heard horns start honking and drums start beating about an hour and a half ago. i live close to the cancha del equipo River Plate, so the phenomenon isn't that extraordinary. When I didn't hear them stop after 10 or 15 minutes, I got curious. Not much was happening on the streets; but close to every balcony was flooded with tenants clanging pots and pans and clapping. Some would stop and restart after a few minutes, others stood diligently, looking straight down into the traffic below. I went outside, and asked a stranger banging a cheese grater outside of my [View Full Entry]

---

---

this city is a gigantic inside joke between men at the cost of their women. i can not get work done. [View Full Entry]

---

---

after a half a week in hunger that was for the first time in my life involuntary (money's been tight, or i'm just hungrier than usual) , I spent my second weekend in la provincia, this time in Quilmes at the home of Javier, a waiter at El Clasico. I spent my first night in BA at el Clasico watching a Huracan/Independiente match, when Javier and Valentin explained by means of an elaborate diagram the breakdown of fanatacism among portenos and taught me proper cat-calling techniques. Since becoming best of friends with Valentin and giving Ivan the cashier a couple of [View Full Entry]

---

---

“Mejor no vuelvas, porque mientras no volvés, podés mantener la ilusión de tener una patria”. for a minute i have to call into question everything i've ever held sacred and unique about the city of new york. that is, its gifts of publicity and privacy, which are bestowed freely and simultaneously from the same ever-flowing font, upon both its residents and those pilgrims who settle there in search of some greater or lesser grail. i admit finally that these phenomena are nothing unique or sacred to my otherwise sacred and unique city, but, again, part and parcel to living in any [View Full Entry]

---

---

Last December, a stretch of about 15 or 20 yards of street in Belgrano (the upscale neighborhood I'm writing from now) was occupied by about 70 of Buenos Aires' cartoneros. Cartoneros are box people, who make their living by collecting corrugated material and other recyclables or reusables from the garbage every night and selling them to plants. The majority started in order to fight homelessness after 2000, and most still live on the streets today. The profession is far from glamorous, and comes off to me as some kindof loose caste mentality meeting rigid principles of autogestion and self-management. It's above [View Full Entry]

---

---

this website dictates that there are more continents on the planet than i was taught actually existed. i also wish i had gotten to keeping track of this whole thing sooner. sure, i feel like i've been here forever. and in three weeks alot of impressions i've had of this city have come and gone. alot within this city comes and goes, and i ( like always ) expect that i came and will eventually go but still relish in the coming and goingness of everything about here. i left home with a feeling that the lust i have for senseless [View Full Entry]

---

---