Monday, 13 February 2006 Souvenirs: Under new suns

New jobbie. With idealistas.org. Was a little nervous for the interview. Computer terms in Spanish. Our neighbor, la bruja, has already called the police on us. For nothing. Why is silence the cardinal virtue of every neighborhood anyway? We have a new hobby: riding on the back of buses. Hands in the grill, feet on the backbumper and zoom. Noxious fun. The police are going to cave in our skulls. We´re only aping some street urchins we saw; they know all the secrets. Una moneda por favor?To understand mythos-- however ridiculous or unwarranted or "irrational" its content-- is to understand human desire. Ice cream for breakfast is the best indication of paradise. They still use warded locks in Buenos Aires. There are beautiful homeless people in Buenos Aires, sleeping along Corrientes. Aimless wandering. Other countries are for when you tire of a certain set of specifics. The spacebuzzers here. Mirrors and wood. Licuados de banana. Flaky people drive me crazy. Dark urine and dehydration. Ramsey is still sick. April´s place is nice. Every Wednesday, converts itself into a restaurant. La Mario is the chef´s name.

Ana took us to the best parrilla. We returned with Ivanna. The butcher-cum-chef pelts his clientel with bits and bones. Punched me in the ribs. Went to La Boca by accident, looking for an imaginary intersection. Colors and animals. Internet chino. Seguramente lo mas veloz. Thousands lining the blocks of Microcentro for a concert. Belgrano is another city. On triadic desire, the Freudian, Lacanian conception of desire. Triadic desire is socialized desire, even to a degree for other social animals. Dyadic desire is still desire, even a stronger force in most cases. We admire the more direct, unmediated, pure, doubtless bold desire of animals and children, less entangled with an other, with language and doubt and expectation. Is this what we want, then, dyadic desire? In itself, no. This other node in the triad (not really one thing, but the aggregate of all related things) often is the very tool or bridge for getting what we want. Civilization, language, thought, other people. Do we then have only the Freudian dilemma between civilization and fulfillment? No. What we want to do is eliminate, where possible, neurosis. When this other node of the triad is interfering, rather than assisting, with our fulfillment. Pubs for instance. Ostensibly a social occasion. People know what they want: to meet others. Both men and women understand the whole aggregate of roles, expectations, rituals, and subtexts; all intended to assist people meeting other people. The true end result, though, is paralysis. Why? We know what we want. Even when the desires are reciprocated, when it is not fear of rejection or ridicule in itself, this third body still interferes. Whereas in gay bars and social upheavals and Wes Anderson movies, normative behaviour is not so crippling; precisely because of the anomaly introduced. We then resort to what we want as our guiding candle. Stranger, if you wish to speak to me, why not speak? Emancipation will always be predominantly an introspective process rather than a social arrangement.



The first truly warm reception. At a party. Having to pay off a girl for splashing her. We should have tipped her as well. "Eight hundred and.. tuesday dollars" Jonny landed a hot date. Palermo soho. Open until dawn with a vacant playground in its heart. Even children stay out until dawn here. "Son bobos!" How do I get so filthy? Met up with Mercedes y Marcela. Museo de Bellas Artes. The Argentine section dominated the European. Edgardo Vigo. Arte Correo. Jorge Tupia. CAYC. Nicolas Uriburu . Gyula Kosice. More. Why is it representation that makes things truly real, truly count? All expression has will and representation as aspects. Cemeterio de Recoleta, donde vive Evita. We do not spend enough time in cemeteries, thanatoptically. It would be a good way to keep the dead alive. It´s bad enough that they are dead; they don´t need to be lonely. La Cigale. An upscale bar. We are meeting more and more people. Told to stop dancing, or "performing." In a playground, north of Florída, told to stop using seesaws as human catapaults. Asked by police how old we are. Steaming heat in the chifa joint; translates into intensity. Gavin and Claire. Hot drinks in hot climates.The owner was authentic half-Peruvian, half-Chinese. Happiness for everybody. Vending machine graveyard. Valentines Day. "I just wanted you to know....(open the card).. that I´m extraordinary."


Why don´t bookstores here have prices? This is ridiculous. Ser y Tiempo at a streetside book kiosk. Lacan, Leibniz and Heidegger at the newspaper stands. Lacan and Freud everywhere. Highest percentage of psychoanalysts in the world, Argentina. Airconditioner rain. Imported mannerisms from Italy. Leo. Philosophy is the best topic in another language. If you lose a word, you just appear pensive or searching for le mot precis. The harpists and dancers on Florída. Vending is lucrative on the Subte. The obelisk is the worst landmark: you can see from all directions. Sidewalks steaming from flowers watered.



Had the best time with Max. An individual incapable of cynicism. You can see it in his face. Cab driver pulled a fast one. In the confusion, we double-paid him. Went to a busted airplanehanger of a joint with billiards and hamburgers and solid sprawling murals of hamburgers and hot dogs. Open twenty hours: it literally has no door. We had to explain to Max why, precisely, we liked such places. "It´s the best because it´s the worst," Jonny said. Blaring the worst American new alt-rock. New Argentine rules. Eightball must go in far left corner pocket. Two games in and the power shorts. Kids tinker with the breakerbox. Bright blue sparks shoot out. Everyone laughs. Wires are melted. Finish our game in the dark. Go walking. To Recoleta. Another woman yells at us for playing on seesaws. Stop to observe a bird trying to die. Fetch water and food. It wants to die. What a strange choice, strange mechanism. Thanatos. A young flowergirl approaches us. She wants something from McDonald´s. We offer her ice cream. No, she wants hamburgers. What kind of girl refuses ice cream? Answer: one who´s fetching food for others. "Dale! Helado no es comida." Jokes all around. This is not a healthy interaction. What would be better? She´s cunning. We tell her we´ll buy her hamburgers only if she eats them with ice cream on top. Agreed. After the purchase she flees. Presumably passes off the hamburgers to other, family/coworkers. Everyone else, from upstairs at McDonald´s, sees her mother slap the hell out of her, in plain air. Simultaneously a fight breaks out between some variety of skinheads. Interest is piqued, but no one interferes. Some even laugh. More soliciation for erotic dance clubs. Sex, in a certain sense, is a very conservative force. Often binding, even, in a human-all-too-human way. I do not understand the aesthetic of the sex industry. Run into someone they met at a silkscreen gallery/workshop. We run across people all the time, strangers even. Like I´ve hear it described: "it´s as if God is running out of extras in the movie of your life." Superpancho Villa. "Genuine experience." Guard dogs that smile, whine, and wag their tails.


Max takes us to a very tranquil overlook near a statue of Bartolomeo Mitre. Indeed ideal, very Bodhi tree. A far off lake. Soft grass. Max compares it to a mattress; Rich thought he heard pussy. My brain is shifting into Spanish mode. Magnolia trees could make a proper home. By the statue there is a lady who lives in the staircase. She was once obscenely wealthy. Now she spends everday, all day, sweeping the staircase. A legend. I saw her yesterday and today. Think I saw her on the Zizek documentary as well, grinning and laughing. Forget her name. Lot of witch metaphors in Argentina. Like thinking about the sublime of different classes of madness and dementia. Each particular sublime. Incorrigible visions. Azulejos. Stanley Kubrick lobbies.