Hot Termales or Desperately Seeking Sluicing

Alamos trees in the Rio Maule Valley

One of the main reasons we were interested in driving around Chile was because we felt it would be a wonderful experience dipping into the many different spas and hot-springs that we have read about.  Chile is, of course, sitting on a major fault line – a subduction zone where the Chile Ridge is being subducted under the South American Plate.  (It;s actually more complicated because there is a third plate around here which makes for a perfect trifecta of shit).This, as you will know, causes a lot of large-scale activity which manifests itself as volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis and the like. Our friend Luis suggests that all this destruction and disruption gives Chileans a resourceful and obdurate character.  A positive consequence of all this tectonic activity is hot-springs which result from subterranean water being heated by geothermal pockets of ultra-hot stone which expands it – the force brings it up to the surface where we humans greedily partake of its benevolent properties.

The usually well-behaved Mount Colbuco erupted last week just south of where we were travelling and, in fact, right where we intended to be a couple of days hence.  So we adjusted our plans, not thinking it wise to end up looking like a half-finished piece of pottery in Herculaneum. After a few days south of Santiago we decided to pursue the Termales further north.

I’ll confess, the pursuit of the perfect hot-springs has been a very frustrating one so far.  Our travels have taken us to a few sites – I should state up front that we are doing the beer-budget tour of spas and hotsprings – we are not going to 4-star hotels or thermals.  In fact the first one we went to was about as far from a 4 –star experience as you could probably imagine.  After several hours of hiking in a nearby National Park we lit out for some ‘natural’ springs near the Argentinian border.  A couple of hours along Highway 115 takes you just east of a wee pueblo called La Mina.  It’s about as close as you can get to Argentina without being gonged with a bolo.  You park in a gravel lot just off the highway – drive your car through that gap in the barbwire fence and pull up to the edge; not too far or your car will plummet about 200 feet to that picturesque canyon floor.  Don’t forget to put some rocks under your wheels just in case your car decides to roll. Climb down a few hundred steps along the crumbly cliff face, cross the gap-toothed suspension bridge over the swiftly-running mountain river and voila, you are almost there.  All you have to do is negotiate the use of the ‘thermals’ with David – an entrepreneur with a whiff of gypsy about him who endeavours to remove all excess cash you might be carrying.

Elizabet's Termales - the hot pool is a tiny birdbath at the extreme right of the big pool

Fortunately we were saved by Elisabet who shooed him away. She led us a few hundred meters to the ‘Vapors’ which is, essentially a steam room.  There are three rooms in fact, each one a ramshackle closet of rusted, corrugated metal, poles, plastic sheeting, moist dirt and rocks -not in any way comfortable but somehow kind of quaint and wonderful.  Intense puffs of steam were exhaled from a mouth-shaped funnel in the side of the cliff as if Satan himself was huffing. If you huddled just so you were bathed in a delicious cloud of earthy steam – barely sulphurous.  In fact someone had placed a clump of eucalyptus leaves on the hole where the steam issued forth and the closet was filled with a yummy, menthol/rosemary scent that lifted our spirits enormously.  We were simultaneously cramped - being pressed against dirt, metal and rock - and anointed with a fantastic sensual mist that shrouded us in a healing embrace. It felt like a timeless ritual – close your eyes and you might have had the same experience hundreds of years ago minus the rusty metal.

From the tin vapour shack we walked back a couple of hundred yards to a small hot pool.  Or perhaps a tepid pool would be more accurate. It was late afternoon and a distinctly cool wind was picking up – pushing down through from the mountains to the east.  A deliciously hot pool would have been most welcome but that was not available.  Still it was lovely to luxuriate, lie back in a dead-man’s float in the shallow, pebble-bottomed depression and look up at the perfect, grey-blue sky with sheer cliffs on all sides.  It was too late to get back on the road so we negotiated a stay in one of Elizabet’s cabanas.  It kind of defies description.  Maybe rustic if you think 1849 rustic.  It was...standing.  The floor was a porous to the outside –the planks had substantial gaps between them.  There was no hot water but there was water.  Electricity appeared just before dark – at about 7.15. We gobbled down some sandwiches made from supplies we had bought for lunch and darted under the linens.  I had a most wonderful night, replete with rich and delicious dreams.  I kept waking up thinking that perhaps all those mountain winds were bringing marvelous and magical ideas and images to me.  Sophie was just cold, cold, cold.  I woke up in the middle of the night and opened the door to look at the stars.  Not a 4-star hotel but a billion star sky.  Wow!

We left early, heading back to nearby Talca.  The valley all along the Maule River was stupendous.  Towering Alamo trees appeared at every turn like frozen Roman Candles.  They glowed in the morning light; cadmium with touches of yellow oxide and sometimes sap green – their autumn costume.  They look like Lombardy poplars - stand about 20 or 25 meters tall.  They form a perfect graphic counterpoint to the undulating grey, purple and vermillion of the valley walls and their verdant, stouter arboreal cousins.  So, in all it was a sensual feast but with some fairly substantial creature comfort costs. Perhaps that is the right formula – it’s just not what we were anticipating or hoping for.

The next Termale we visited was purported to be more luxurious.  It is adjacent to one of Chile’s most popular ski resorts near the small city of Chillan (avoid). The drive up was, again, spectacular. I love the journeys up into the mountains.  Both times we traveled up into increasingly verdant, forested hills and sierra.  This time the road was up to the summit of the mountain so the road was winding and heavily forested.  The trees are very different what we are familiar with in Canadian forests.  Some trees are huge, broad pines – having the silhouettes of deciduous trees.  There is a tree here called El Roble that provides beautiful red wood – almost as deep as mahogany.  It’s reputedly as strong as oak. 

When we neared the summit – there were some crazy hairpin turns along the way which challenged the power of our meagre Chevrolet sedan and also my neglected skills with a stick shift – we drove into the Complejo Hermoso – Beautiful Complex.  This Termale consisted of three piscina, only two of which were operating.  They were quite crowded even at that relatively early hour.  Large-ish Chileans formed a ring around the edge like a limn of salt on a pisco sour.  The water was an opaque oyster grey and, unfortunately again, not very hot. Drat! We were both looking forward to a good cooking like we had experienced in Japan.  This time the setting was a bit more commercial, with concessions selling dulces and bebidas but the sun was yummy warm and the sky was a perfect azure.  We simmered for an hour or so in the charcoal soup and then headed back down the hill.  We were planning to get close to Santiago – about a 6 hour drive.  On the way down the hill we picked up a couple of young ladies who were hitchhiking to get down to Chillan - on our route.  Their English was only a bit better than my egregious Spanish but we made good conversation and their stories lightened our spirits.  They are both avid climbers and they had spent a few days climbing in and around the area.  I might have scared the crap out of them with my distracted driving.  Ah well, we all lived.

So in terms of performance of the spas, maybe a C.  But both trips were memorable for other reasons.  And that is sort of the story of Chile so far.  The experience of the natural beauty of the country and the warmth and friendliness of the people outweighs the teeth-grinding frustration of the traffic, town layouts, signage, MALE CHILEAN DRIVERS and general lack of sanitation almost everywhere. I long for the wonderful bidets of Argentina.

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We are now in the north.  We are resuming our quest for delicious, healing, scalding Termales.  I’ll give you marks from the second semester in a later posting.  Stay well and warm my friends.  We are entering the home stretch.  After a few days up here in Chico Norte we will head back down to Santiago via Valparaiso, drop off the Chevy and spend a day or two with our friends before flying back to GOOD OLD CANADA.

Chile Dawgs

Mireya with Baloo, Charly and Alfie

I feel compelled to write but I don’t have a theme.  It happens. I expected Chile to be different from Argentina but it is different in every possible way.  We have some acquaintances here.  We knew Mireya in Toronto.  Not very well but she was in Sophie’s circle.  She and her husband Luis live in the southeast of Santiago.  They live in an ‘ecological’ development which seems to be shorthand for ‘how the world might have turned out if the sixties didn’t go sideways’.

Santiago is cradled within mountains.  Everywhere you look there are mountains just out of reach. They were misty when we arrived.  The next day the sun burnt off the mist and they were mauve, sandstone, grey-purple and blackish green in places.   They are not particularly sharp but they are comfortingly close. Sometimes it is reminiscent of Banff – but Banff with a population of, what...15 Million?!?!? and dropped into New Mexico or Colorado perhaps Arizona.

At the entrance to Mireya and Luis’ enclave is a cluster of little artisanal shops.  Ceramics, weaving, knitting, crocheting, and the like are for sale and too, those skills are offered as classes for children and adults.  Yoga Tuesdays and Fridays and a few restaurants rest happily beneath the huge trees.  People walk around in hippy weeds, their gait is loose and easy. Travel a up the road a little further and then turn up the Buena Camino: a delicious serpentine macadam road that winds easily between brobdignagian eucalyptus trees – it's a scene right out of LOTR .  There are no curbs; asphalt hugs the bases of the trees - it lies like it was taffy poured from a jug. Drivers slow and pull over for oncoming cars because it is a bit too narrow for two cars to pass easily in most areas.  People hitchhike in this community; it is safe within the perimeters though, interestingly, not particularly neighbourly – Chileans seem to be family focused but not particularly inclined to share time with immediate neighbours (I am told).  As in the rest of Santiago and what we have seen of Chile so far, each house has a fence or wall in front.  An automated gate permits ingress and egress of vehicles and humans.  Dogs are everywhere, they wander quite freely though we are given to understand that the perimeter of each yard in sacrosanct and foreign dogs enter at their peril and often perish if they trespass.  It is the law of this place and everyone knows and respects it.  Dogs are so present in Chile and Argentina in fact that I suspect that half the canine of the population of the world can be found in Latin America. The houses in the community are all unique, much of them designed and jerry-built – which doesn’t mean they are poorly constructed, just that they are often quirky in design and features. Some are distinctly hobbit-like. Some do look a tad shaky.

Luis and Mireya live at the ‘top’ of Buena Camino – theirs is the last cross street – named Camino las Estrellas.  It does seem that you could leap to the stars if you got a good enough run up the Buena Camino. To get to their home you take a right from the smooth macadam; the road immediately turns to hellacious dirt and rocks whose sole purpose seems to be to eviscerate your vehicle.  Fortunately they live only a hundred or so feet along.  Another right down a narrow drive brings you to their gate.  When it swings inwards you find yourself in an Eden-like sanctuary.  Baloo, Charly and Alfie (you have to work at getting Alfie to like you) are there to greet you.  Baloo is a giant, male yellow lab; neck like a bull and male apparatus to match.  He’s only nine but already has a touch of the ‘thritis.  Never mind, he’s as friendly as any lab you can find.  He talks a bit; low-frequency groans and grunts that surely are meant to communicate his pleasure at your acquaintance or his discomfiture at the pinch of fall that is in the air.  Charly is a as smart as a whip. Part border collie, she has a gentle manner, deep, chestnut brown, voluble eyes and a silky black coat with just a hint of brindle mutt in her fetlocks. Alfie is similarly small with a wavy black coat with a brilliant white tuxedo chest - maybe a bit of spaniel, some border collie and a touch of terrier.  He’s much more reserved and will take his own sweet time in deciding whether you can be a friend.  Chuck him under the chin for a bit and give him a few rubs on the insides of his oversized ears and he’s yours.

The house that Luis and Mireya designed is literally fantastic.  Statues, masks, dreamy paintings and a thousand small amuse-guele abound. In the towering hallway a winding iron staircase leads up to the master bedroom and star-watching dome.  Through and to the right is a generous kitchen with a heavy wooden table.  Another table in the next room would easily seat 10.  Luis and Mireya seem to do a lot of their day-to-day work there – Luis has a few projects on the go and Mireya is an art and music therapist.  The floors are variously stone, tile, and dark, tropical wood.  Keep moving to the right and there is a passageway, a shortish hallway lined with plants, that brings you to their music room.  It’s a musician’s dream with every instrument and noise-making piece of hardware you can imagine. What an auditory feast! Luis lit a fire in the small stove at the far end of the room when we arrived because it was a particularly cool evening. We sat and talked and were immediately at home. Luis shared a wonderful and terrible life story - mostly wonderful - from the crucible of Chile in the 70s he has emerged a gentle, compassionate man.

The side and rear of the house open to a hectare or so of porch that Luis has been working on for a year or so.  Trees thrust from the porch or arch over it, creating shady pools and yummy sun struck islands.  Below, down a few stairs is a path to their swimming pool.  Too cool now to swim in but very inviting.  Hemming the porch are a variety of shrubs and trees.  Peaches and almonds grow here.  Bougainvillea, hibiscus, figs too. Reach out and grab a few leaves of lemon-balm to make a delicious tea. Here’s a rosemary bush the size of a car.  And succulents are everywhere in Santiago so there are dozens of cacti, sedum, jade plants, agave  – I have no idea what 90% of the plants are.  It’s absolutely magnificent.

I've neglected to mention Emma and Simon, two of their children who live here as well.  They have been generous and welcoming to us as well.  Evan went to school with another of Mireya’s children, Camilla, at Ossington Old Orchard Public School – that’s how we came to know Mireya.

Enough for now.  I am writing this from their beach-house which is an hour north of Valparaiso.  It looks west to Australia perhaps.  I’ll put together a few words about this ocean idyll in a later posting.

We have landed in a cradle of kindness and generosity, so we can just eat and laugh with friends. We’ll take to the road soon enough.

We are now more than half way through our journey.  We’ve felt strong yearnings to return home from time to time but every day has a different energy and buoys us or drops us.  Part of the deal.

Suenos y Suertes

Sculpture in the Cemetario - Buenos Aires

Dreams and Fortunes - I am dreaming again.  After a long drought of months and months of furtive, forgotten or blurry dreams I am waking from labyrinthine epics. This morning, one about Evan and his newly discovered love of horse-riding (Marsie, Don et al also in the cast) – In the event Evan is a sexy, pre-pubescent Bieber-like star because of his good looks – pin straight hair draped casually ‘a la rideau’ over his smouldering dark eyes.  Most of the dream was spent looking for a nice large space for him and his friends to enjoy riding.  Is it the sudden presence of gauchos in my subconscious? In any case I love to dream so it’s a welcome change. I’ve always felt that my dreams are evidence of my wonting creativity – ‘if only I had ready access to the huge trove of imagery and storytelling that resides in my unconscious’ I opine.

Just before we set out to Argentina I had a dream. As follows: in a ruined transept of an ancient stone cathedral; I gaze into a small room on the right side of the nave and watch as a pair of dusty legs clambered down from a sun-spiked hole in the ceiling.  The nave is filled with a glacis of broken stone and plaster, bits of wood . The figure continues to climb down – sandals, legs, heavy woven robe, revealing, eventually, none other than Saint Christopher (patron saint of travelers I think).  I just ‘knew’ it was him, no introductions.  The upshot of it was that in that half-awake moment I realized that THERE IS A GOD! (because, in dream-logic it follows that if there is a Saint there is a God).  In any case I woke up sobbing – the emotions were that strong for this lapsed Cat-lick.  I can’t say that it led to any Tarsus-like conversion (it was a dream after all). I mention this only because it was the first or one of the first dreams that occurred after my long drought.  My interpretation was that on some level I was mentally preparing for this trip - and certain people have expressed concern that it might be too early for me to take on the challenges of a sustained voyage.  I took the dream to mean that all would be well (if dreams have predictive capability). I sincerely believe that I am attended by several ‘good spirits’ who look out for me and deflect bad things from my path. Among those in the pantheon of my protective spirits I believe are our two Grandmothers: Rie and Ket, those three-lettered angels who so profoundly loved we Gillies children – our first experiences of unconditional love. For the record, I also believe that there are brujas in the world who one is better avoiding. I’ve met some of those and gotten into a few scrapes. New Age nonsense?

A happy Cemetario cat

The famous Cemetario in Buenos Aires is unlike anything I have ever seen in Canada.  Unlike Paris’ Montmartre in that it is entirely comprised of crypts in perfect array, hardly a centimeter of space between one and the next.  This wee Pueblo de los Muertos hosts generations of prominent Buenos Aires families’ dusty ancestors. The dessicatantes reside in tidy little bloques arranged on a slightly eccentric grid - the whole site is only a city block in area.  The ‘residences’ of the deceased are maintained exquisitely or left to crumble in genteel desuetude; likely a reflection of the fortunes or lack thereof of the families who are the occupants. In the latter case dessicated ferns and stringy shrubs are permitted to sprout optimistically from tiny cracks and crevices in untended doorways and walls.  Occasionally a bland-faced attendant will pop out of a hidden gap, Jeeves-like, armed with broom or cloth to attend to this structure or that. Some of the crypts have windows that reveal inky staircases leading to the personal underworld of the occupant family. Stone sculptures have limbs missing, tiny, ancient caskets are nearly tumbling out of fractured windows. There is a subtle but pervasive smell of mildew and must. Doom and decay are everywhere despite the imposition of order and care. Cemetery cats wander, stretch, preen and loll – they will welcome a little skritch behind the ear then saunter off.  They look content enough with their employment. You know what they say: If you love your job you will never work a day in your life. One doesn’t really want to think too hard about the food chain that links to their sleek, healthy appearance.

Tomb of Eva Peron

The tomb of Eva Peron is here and is easily the most famous feature.  She is still fiercely revered by many Argentines.  Her crypt has the family name Duarte.  It is a fine crypt though her family roots are quite humble.  How is it that newcomers find a residence in this finite space.  Did some family fail to keep up with the rent or do lesser families get the boot in favour of the more recent notables? There are fresh carnations and roses twined into the fine, wrought iron gate of her crypt. All the guided tours wend towards that one crypt, the walkways seem almost concave from the wear of pedestrians.

There is another crypt nearby that has a notorious history.  Apparently a young woman was buried alive – her later exhumation revealed scratch marks on the interior lid of her coffin.  Taphophobia is the word for fear of being buried alive.  I couldn’t find a word for the event of it rather than the fear thereof. There are several contrivances that have been devised to prevent premature internment from being a fatal experience. I suggest a little bell and a generous flue. Make sure you have a strong wifi connection if you have such a concern.  The door of the unfortunate lady’s crypt features the bas-relief sculpture of a young woman pulling at the door – far more pleasing I think than an authentic depiction of someone clawing wildly at the lid. I was reminded of that wonderful wake scene in The Shipping News by Annie Proulx.  Not so fortunate this woman.

Another nearby crypt has a sculpture of a young woman standing beside her loyal dog (top picture in this blog).  Strangely, the cats seemed to like hanging around just thereabouts. The bronze nose of the dog has been polished to a bright sheen by the touch of many passers-by.  Perhaps it is a talisman of fortune to the locals. Here in the Cemetario, unique in a public place in Buenos Aires, there is not a trace of graffiti.  The walkways are pristine and true.  Ok Colin, we get the picture...

A couple of days later we visited the Evita Peron Museum. I confess I knew very little about her. I had assumed in my ignorance that she was a beautiful gold-digger that had attached herself to a powerful political figure for personal gain. I am not certain what the attraction was between her and Juan was – they had profoundly different values before they met - but she achieved remarkable things and worked assiduously for the poor – especially single mothers - during the few years she lived with him before she died tragically young.  I was profoundly moved by her history as narrated in the museum. There is a terribly affecting bronze bust of her near the exit.  It was bashed and beaten by some thug after her demise – like the barbaric defacement of a ruler or god by a conquering enemy. Have you noticed how many times Western leaders have used the word ‘barbaric’ when referring to ISIS/ISIL? Smacks of ancient, biblical stuff – rape, pillage and the like.  Shorthand access to our fears and prejudices. After all, barbaric just means ‘foreign’.

The Evita Museum is a short distance from the MALBA – a small but beautiful private art museum featuring 20^th century Argentine art.  The displays are wonderful, the ambience is delicious – a sunnier version of the Guggenheim perhaps. The return trip home, through the Japanese Gardens and then the Botanical Gardens was less impressive – or maybe I was just too tired and footsore.  In any case I would recommend giving the Japanese gardens a pass - especially if you have ever been to Japan – it comes off as a shabby notion both aesthetically and structurally. The Japanese hold in reverence water, stone and wood – this garden demonstrates none of that quality of thought or spirit.

All these sites are within walking distance if you stay in Palermo.  I haven’t visited all of BA but my impression so far is that it is the best barrio for travelers to reside. It is urban but not as polluted and relentlessly concrete as San Telmo.  It has an abundance of street life – cafes, restaurants and nightclubs. It seems quite safe even at night, and is central to much of what BA has to offer.  A quick trip on the Subte (subway) along the Santa Fe line takes one downtown to the center, Puerto Madero and to San Telmo which all have notable sites to visit. Wear comfortable walking shoes. Taxis are cheap, buses and subway are very inexpensive – buy a SUBE card at a lottery shop (they are everywhere) and charge it up with 50 or so pesos so you don’t need to deposit money to travel.

More Graffiti - and general muralistic stuff from Buenos - these from San Telmo barrio

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I started out hating the defacement.  

Now I get excited when I see a cluster of graffiti ahead of me. 

Antonio Tapies - ring a bell? Check him out

What does it mean? 

Nothing and everything.  

Why is it there?  

Because humans make a mark. 

Here are some images - click on to reveal higher res.

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Coral Reef - the Sequel

Pope Francis, like his sainted namesake, loves the birds and beasts.

When I travel – especially in cities - I am constantly reminded of coral reefs.  I suppose there are a few analogs: cities are accretive, there’s a lot of deconstruction and reconstruction continuously going on, and they are environments for a whole host of species – many of whom are just taking advantage of the niches that present themselves in the neglected spaces created by some of the hosts. They are sites for both dead and living. They are layered – painted and changed by unconscious action over time – a canvas of circumstance and accident whose image will never be finalized.

Graffiti in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. 2015

The graffiti images I am collecting in photographs are inspiring and they completely connect (to me) to more conscious artistic endeavours we see in museums.  Sometimes it’s hard to determine what is art and what is defacement. We went to an exhibit at the MAMBA here in San Telmo – actually a series of exhibits.  For me they had a few things in common – they featured South American, mostly Argentinian artists –  density and chaos; which evoked the richness and complexity of life and language and the rich stew that exists in the human mind – the logical and irrational hemispheres that contribute to creative thought and scientific revelation – but that density and complexity in the exhibits also served as a means of obscuring dangerous, seditious messages.  Much of the imagery was abstract but created from found items.  Collages of imagery taken from improbably different sources.  One artist, Leon Ferrari, created dense tonal canvasses.  The tone was created by reams of written words.  The content of the words was probably seditious but they were so layered upon each other that it was difficult to ‘prove’ what the message was.  It was as if a crowd was whispering and one could discern occasional words – words of discontent, revolution, anti-religious sentiment – but who was whispering those words?  One couldn’t be sure what the precise message was but, too, one knew what was implicit.  Ferrari japed religion by combining classical images of Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden with explicit images from the Kama Sutra and Japanese 19^th century woodcuts depicting graphic sex – all lacquered together in raunchy collages. Pornographic Monty Python stuff. Was this reflective of the artist’s need to obscure his message to survive through all the political turmoil of the past decades?  Hiding in plain sight – camouflaged by an overabundance of visual information. Very crafty.

Leon Ferrari . MAMBA- Buenos Aires

Leon Ferrari - Buenos Aires artist

And the graffiti.  It is an accretion of the actions of different humans with different intents and agendas, all using one common surface for anonymous expression.  The graffiti often contains ideas of revolution, oppression, political action.  Who wrote what, when? So the graffiti ends up being a fantastic kluge of ideas, funny images, threat, call-to-arms.  Abstract but also meaningful and potent with anger, humour and banalities. Often, I think, the random, potent emotion of the graffiti is more powerful than the more intellectual stuff that is framed and curated in glass and marble halls.

Graffiti in San Telmo, Buenos Aires. 2015

Of course a tour of Buenos Aires wouldn’t be complete without a diorama of a life-like, full-size Pope Francis blessing an acre or so of sizzling meat on a massive parilla. These bizarre juxtapositions provoke strong sentiments of how upside down – literally – the culture here is.  Religion and politics are both more tangible and more abstracted – they are pervasive yet, for me, unintelligible because of their unfamiliar associations and different social context.

I hear and read the language, I understand snippets of it but I am never sure what I am receiving and how to respond – what fits where. Always learning.  Siempre. I sense the verbs and nouns, like coral fauna, populating and navigating the coral of my pre-frontal cortex.  It’s kind of wonderful and it’s a complete mess.

I haven’t fallen off the underside of the planet yet.  I’ve been hanging by my toes for nearly three weeks now.

Milonga

I’ll try to keep the hyperbole and blather out of this blog.  We went to a milonga a few nights past.

Milonga – Noun  (plural milongas)

1.       A form of music originating in Argentina, Uruguay and Southern Brazil

2.       A dance which accompanies this music

Origin

From Spanish milonga

Attached images will tell a better story than I can. Suffice to say that we were plunged into a rich stew of sound, vocal expostulation, light and movement that was intoxicating.  If you travel to Buenos Aires Do. This. One. Thing: Café Vinilo in Palermo on a Monday night. It’s on Gorriti near Bulnes. I'll add some audio and video links to this when I have easier access to them.

You have to ring a bell at the front door to gain entrance (I have no idea who they would exclude if they let the grey pilgrims from winterland in). Like all evening fare in Argentina it starts pretty late-ish – 10pm.  There was a bit of terpsichoric skirmishing on the dance floor just as we found our seats along the wall – young couples dancing arrythmically (it seemed to me) to recorded tango music.  It was the first time I had seen tango dancing live (almost true – I’d seen it at the Dovercourt House but there is no comparison in terms of technique or timing). After each piece the audience would applaud.  I thought more people would jump into the fray but for the most part there were usually only one or two couples dancing.  The few dozen looking on – were they expectant? Judgmental? Curious? I can’t read Portenos (that;s what they call themselves). I think that if we had stayed around after the musical performance there might have been more going on but we ancients need our 20.5hours/day of rest or we turn into calabasas.

At 11 or so we plunge into black – like a power shortage.  No dimmer.  Complete void, an expectant vacuum of noise..  A moment later a sudden blare of ruby and amber lights burst above the raised dais illuminating a wide plume of smoke, the glint of a bass sax, a gleaming cello, bass; an ancient piano stands off stage left – its operator crouched like a vulture over the keys.  The Orquestra Victoria.  A dozen or so musicians begin to play a most stirring, romantic, sad and haunting music.  Sitting on a wooden box center stage a young man directs while playing his bandoleon – he swings his neck rapidly to indicate the beginning of a phrase or detaches his right hand from the keys and slices the smoky air – CRASH! delicious.  It was like being plunged naked into black coffee! The lights are beautifully choreographed to the music – sometimes a single spot ekes out a face, floating in inky space, sometimes the musicians are wholly backlit like a black row of scarecrows. We sat transfixed for an hour, being battered and torn and dragged across heart’s half acre by a language we barely understood.  Wow! The musicianship was superb and the singer, who emerged now and again to plunge his hand into our chests and hold our living, beating hearts, mercilessly, in front of us, was stunning.

heart-rending vocalization

As suddenly as it begins, it ends. We settle up.  A pittance for a fantastic evening. Walking home; the streets are dark.  The trees brood. The air is dense, humid. There are few people on the streets but it feels safe though otherworldly. Again the pervasive smell of diesel and unburnt fuel. The tenor whine of a motorbike that coughs and stutters into a downshift.  The sidewalks….ok Colin, if you mention the fucking sidewalks one more time I’m going to fly down there and make you eat one!….were…..ok. Can I mention the dogshit again?

Sorry about the hyperbole and blather.  Seems to be part of the package.

All Problems are Design Problems

Waah! Waah!  Waah! This is probably just me getting older and more crotchety.  Crotchety – what the hell does that mean? What happens in old peoples crotches – or does it refer to crocheting????

adj.

1825, from crotchet "whim or fancy" + -y (2). But the sense evolution is obscure.

Crotchety?  Oh yeah, design. Well I guess it’s a good enough departure point. I always thought it meant grouchy but it also means fussy and eccentric. Fussy – yup.  Eccentric – now that I have one leg an inch or so shorter than the other I am definitely eccentric.  I walk in circles, head slightly tilted to the west. My legs work like one of them old locomotive cranks and I wobble and bobble along if unassisted by my cane. My structure is Tower-of-Pisa-like, every step produces a click and a pop in my neck so simply walking is now a percussive experience. Makes me cranky, crotchety. And so my newfound structural eccentricity makes me fussier and more crotchety.

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But my current infirmity really has rent open my sensitivity to what offends the body and what doesn’t.  My main focus is, of course, related to ambulatory matters but since (almost) everything in my present life is informed by my eccentricity I am rediscovering ‘environment’ – or at least I am being given the opportunity to examine the world from a shifted perspective.  So a city like Buenos Aires, which has a cornucopia of design issues, is ripe for my assessment and critique and inspires this tract.

Design Problems. I wanted to invite discussion re: a more considered cultural shift to attending to human factors – i.e. how humans navigate and engage with the man-made. I suppose at the root of it all I am pleading for an awakening.  I desire a world where things aren’t lumpy and cranky and discordant and pain-producing. And I want a world where human structural aberrations (mine for instance – but also addressing issues for all the senses, infirmities, diminishing capacities and intellectual deficiencies etc.) are thoughtfully managed and compensated for.  Certainly that’s where my ideas regarding smarter, customizable canes and cheaply produced prosthetics are emerging from.  But, at every turn, every moment of every day I am confronted with lousy design. We need more people attacking and resolving these problems – at least so we don’t continue to iterate lousiness.  I want to live in a smarter world.  Hah!

Here’s a simple design problem for instance – sidewalks.  In Canada it’s a shameful cliché that two weeks after a new stretch of concrete sidewalk is laid down that a utility company or other jackhammers the crap out of portions of it, refills it with asphalt that heaves and crumbles, leaving it looking like a satanic  tetris game – ultimately to be patched with concrete that will shift and subside or rise tectonically to create a frickin obstacle course.  What about a modular approach to sidewalk construction? In fact they have tiled sidewalks in BA.  Unfortunately the tiles are not maintained to any standard.  They appear to be the responsibility of the property owner whose edifice they front which means that they are well or poorly maintained or entirely fucked over.  They rise, drop or shift subtly in height to confound people such as I.  So standards would be important –  and frost is a huge consideration in Canada whereas it is not in this part of Argentina.  But a modular sidewalk would, hypothetically, provide a more consistent, more replaceable, manipulable surface – they could even be designed to be rougher on slopes and smoother on flats. In Tokyo there are little rows of flat pimples on yellow tiles that are inserted like marquetry along the perfect, graphite grey, gum-free asphalt sidewalks.  I couldn’t figure out what they were for until I recognized that they were integrated with the crosswalks and even in malls where they led to washroom facilities and emergency stations that had motion-activated automatic recorded information.  They were ‘trail-braille’ for visually impaired.  Now that is a country that pays a lot of attention to design.  Should I reprise my ‘Ode to a Bidet’?  Not now, but man the Japanese think a lot about functions!  All kinds of functions.  Recently Sophie read a report to me that Japanese women would prefer to order fresh meat from a machine because it is uncomfortable talking to a human about meat.  Talk about sensitive!  Let’s go ROBOTS! “Piece of rump roast please”, or ‘PRESS A4’.

I often used to be inspired to conceive of simple ways of improving things. I remember visiting my beloved Auntie Gen in the seniors home just before she passed.  I was horrified by how almost everything in that place was poorly designed for an infirm person.  Not only the physical design of the place but proportions, colours, surfaces, textures, acoustics  – doorknobs, doors, taps, faucets, showers, tubs, handrails, lighting, clothing – it goes on.  How was it possible that nobody was paying attention to those things?  What would it take to improve them? I recognize that there is much more attention being paid these days to many of those issues. But nowadays I am constantly, literally, overwhelmed by the ‘problems; that need to be addressed. Once one has been whelmed, one is very sensitive to being under and over the whelm.  It’s nautical.

I have great hope for open-source culture and for 3D printing – particularly for prototyping.  I believe those two aspects of modern technology alone will provide huge gains in the way we engage with the man-made.  Lower cost and greater efficacy will be driven rapidly by sharing and testing new ideas instantaneously. BTW – in addition to cheap 3D printers we need good, cheap, high resolution 3D scanners. Secretly I am also pretty excited about robots – because they will reduce a huge amount of human suffering. It might be impolitic to be pro-robot because they will certainly put a LOT of humans out of semi-skilled and menial work.  I’m totally for robots keeping our subway platforms and passageways clean. I love Evan’s little roomba – kluge on a scrub brush and some gum-dissolving GM bacteria and let ‘er rip! And, if you robots are already listening and watching – hey! I’m all about recognizing the rights of robots.  I’m ready to negotiate. Iamnotarobot.

Our Colleges and Universities are not, in my opinion, accepting the mantle of responsibility in DESIGNING  good courseware that will provide knowledge and skills to Canadian students for exploiting the new and emerging technologies.  Integrated study in human factors (ergonomics), product design and 3D modelling should be curriculum in every post-secondary institution.  Design in general is embarrassingly poorly taught in Canada.  We should be a country of great designers – we have that wonderful Nordic gene stuff – from the Danes and Finns – Poles, Germans and French all have emigrated in droves to our shores – their native design is remarkable in so many ways.  First nations people came up with some pretty wonderful design.  The tipi and igloo are amazingly beautiful and appropriate expressions of materials and environmental dictates.  Their decorative traditions are pretty amazing too. Where are our fantastic design heroes given this endowment? We don’t celebrate and revere great designers like the French, Spanish, Japanese do.  Take a designer to lunch today.

There is a plethora of design problems that want to be addressed.  I’ve no doubt that there are at least two plethorae. Look around you. If you have designer DNA – and every human does though many don’t express it – you can probably conceive of how many objects and devices in your immediate environment could be made to be more accessible, simpler to operate, more ‘tuned’ to your needs; smarter, more supportive.  Almost everything is possible these days with the possible exception of time-travel and getting a good piece of cheese at a moment’s notice.  I hesitate to kvetch about being unable to get a reasonably good bottle of Malbec in Ontario because I am (farily) confident that our enlightened Premier will soon license corner stores.  Rise up!  Vote for a politician who will put more energy into better design practices and more accessible wine.  Because All Problems are Design Problems. 

In fact we could start by designing a better political system in Canada.  Let’s overhaul the Senate – make it elected or perhaps consensual. Let’s insist on lots more oversight and real teeth in Government.  Let’s outlaw omnibus bullshit and allow maximum two terms as Prime Minister. Ooops.  No more politics.

Amendment of public facilities and wayfinding (signage both explicit and implicit) should be crowdsourced.  Together we could all improve and smooth most aspects of living if we could contribute, like water smoothing stone, to making iterative adjustments in the design of all things. Do you know that they are experimenting with slime moulds – using them to design maximum efficiency in integrated circuit and highway design?  The moulds choose the path of least resistance but can also be ‘programmed’ to observe topography and geography – even geopolitical borders. Crowdsourcing could be like that. Check it out.

One last thought.  Think of one thing that bugs you and DESIGN a better form of it (in words or as a drawing).  Send it to me.  We’ll start a list.  There is a company I am working with (3D printer manufacturer) that is interested in helping to develop products that promote a better designed living experience.  If there is merit in it perhaps I can get the idea in front of a student designer at OCADU or Seneca, where I have contacts.

Note: All ideas will be open-source therefore free to any and all interested parties so no one will profit monetarily, only through betterment of living and social amelioration.

Back to Buenos in my next rant!

Spray Balm

I am beginning to see the charm in what initially struck me as awful.  The shock of seeing graffiti on EVERYTHING was huge at first.  The night we landed Soph and I took a walk around Palermo. I was concerned that we had been lured into a desperately dangerous part of town because of the general appearance of the streets – littered, dumpsters overflowing with trash every 50m or so, cracked and uneven sidewalks desperately in need of repair, archipelagos of dog shit and graffiti.  All surfaces from .5m to 2m above grade have been tagged.  Not only is there spray paint, there are stencils and posters which are all super-tagged.  In Canada those are the hallmarks of a broken neighbourhood.  That was my immediate response. But if I can set aside my prejudice about graffiti and try to regard it as part of the cultural norm and not an indicator of societal cancer then I begin to appreciate the random artfulness of it.  Prejudices die hard but I am beginning to be reconciled to it.

What came first, the graffiti, the broken sidewalks, the lack of consistency in street wayfinding and pedestrian cues? I suppose it’s all of a piece.  What does it indicate? That’s where I would get in over my head.  I’d be tempted to say that Argentineans have suffered such a devastating series of blows to their societal structure over the past century through governmental strife that they have lost a pride of place or a strong sense of communal ideals.  But I don’t know enough about the people, whether it was ever a well-functioning, clean, orderly, safe society.  One thing is certain – Buenos Aires, at one time – or more than one time, had an abundance of remarkably beautiful buildings and homes.  The style of many structures is very elegant and appealing – a modern (early 20th century) fusion of Romanesque details, beautifully crafted doors and portcullises, lovely proportions that suggest stability, security and elegance. It’s mostly a muddle now.  Street-fighters teeth.  The lovely canines which are those classically beautiful examples of modern architecture still exist at most street corners but the incisors and bicuspids that form the rest of the smile have been knocked out and replaced with cheap monstrosities, gorgeous monoliths (there is still a strong culture of excellent design and design thinking alive in Argentina) or just plain, recklessly unconsidered infill. Regardless of their provenance or date-of-birth they are all smeared with graffiti – or nearly all – some residents must fight a relentless and enduring war by continuously restoring to original what the spray bombs have sought to mutate to the standard.

It appears that the middle class is thriving here.  In Palermo, a leafy goulash of old and new, there are pockets of robust dining and shopping.  The urban patterns are different here – commerce and residence are all of a piece as is true in most large European cities – apartments in two and three storey buildings above bodegas, tiendas, bars, restaurants.  Interestingly, bars often share space with nifty little clothes boutiques.  Would you like a beer with that bra? There is a lot of urban artwork – this Latin country shares a quirky sensibility of rich, passionate imagery and vulgar (in the nicest sense of the word (?)) cartoony muralization (had to make it up I think) with Mexico, Spain (those come to mind). (Who the hell is Mafalda?) The artwork is often witty, meaningful and ironic.  There is a strong graphic sense in much of the work.  While typography is not noticeably impeccable here the accidental stuff (packing crates) and the remains from historic buildings (shattered neon) are very rich (to me).  It’s Easter weekend and the streets of Palermo are overflowing with young couples, prams, hyper-cool dudes and dudettes.  Clothing is relatively conservative – lots of jeans.  Platform shoes are very popular – at least in the windows of zapateriae – not so much in practice.  The spoor of grilled beef is pervasive and whiffs pizza and empanadas provide the strings to meat’s rich bass.  Helado forms the anchor on every corner it seems and mornings are apparently incomplete without an espresso and a medialune dulce. Cafe Martin’s coffee (a chain of coffee shops here) equals anything I tasted in Italy – and it’s hard to get a bad cup of coffee.

The anticipated music is not very present on the streets – we did see a bit of a Tango demo in San Telmo – a slightly seamier, older part of town closer to the center – last week.  Ambient music is often classic American 60’s, Gangsta rap (our taxi driver?), Ameri-pop and romantic Latin ballads. Behind doors though we have listened to some fantastic jazz and Argentinian work.  I hope to get out a lot more in the couple of weeks remaining to us but I find I am very tired most evenings.  More siestas might be in order.

That’s enough I think.  I tend to ramble.  Later, friends.  I miss my friends and family and look forward to meals, laughter and music with you all.

Apologies for these crappy pictures.  I don't have my Adobe Lightroom on this laptop and can only do minor edits in Picasa.