Southside Revival

Alec's mother just left town a few days ago. I came down with a fever that lasted most of her visit, unfortunately, though it was well worth the Adrian Harris dancing extravaganza that likely precipitated it. The day before she left, Saturday, we visited Tigre, a tourist destination to the north with pleasant riverside walks, known for river tours to various islets we were sadly unable to indulge in. Alec and I promised to return at a later date, with the formidable local amusement park as a secondary excuse. Most notable was the Museo de Tigre, a two-story mansion in white and gray stone with an elaborate bridge emerging from the museum proper to extend out toward the river, elevated high above the path, with no obvious function save to be beautiful; large enough to fit hundreds and overlooking a garden adorned with modern art, it looked perfect for outdoor parties, an aesthetic delight all the more breathtaking for being functionally unnecessary.

I'm afraid we're all bad with taking pictures, in general.

The day before, Alec's mother had received a troubling e-mail which she contextualized for us with an all-too-believable story, a microcosm of human relations: a group of friends and families united by a love of music, one of the most beloved of their members a middle-aged man who invited the seventeen-year-old niece of one of the others' to his cabin to practice music only to sexually abuse her. Reactions are decidedly mixed; many are inclined to forgive him, some dismiss it -- "she's almost eighteen anyway, what's six months", "oh, these things happen" -- and several blame the girl. A year later, after she's made a consistent effort to avoid him, they are to be accidentally reunited at a meeting, and the issue arises again. The troubling e-mail Alec's mother received was from the man himself, the culprit of the abuse, wherein he discusses his soul searching and what he believes to be his problem.

"My pain has spread out to you all," he said. Speaking to the niece directly, "We've both been hurt by this, but we will be better off for it." This, he said, is his way of taking responsibility.

I couldn't get this story out of my head as I walked through Tigre. I thought of my sister, and how if I ever received a message like this from any man who dared abuse her, had I not already ended his life, I would assuredly be unable to contain myself thereafter. I thought of Reilley and his particular destructive psychosis, an escapism that became solipsism, an unwillingness to recognize the boundaries between individuals; how that is a fundamentally cowardly and self-indulgent unwillingness. And I thought of my father, and the e-mail my uncle received from him that would make my family relations a balancing act for four years to come. Actually, I thought of my father a lot, certainly more than should be warranted.

And I couldn't stop thinking: I still don't know what to say.

My pain? That seemed the heart of the problem. You caused that pain, but it's not yours. This isn't about you. Only a narcissist could fail to see the inherent exploitation in that relationship, and only a narcissist would claim ownership over someone else's suffering -- and then mistake that self-pity, that self-aggrandizement, for responsibility, for atonement. Daring to put himself on the level of the victim, daring to speak to her directly: there is no humility in that, no recognition of a crime, of the heinous moral offense that is the utter corruption of what meaningful relationships demand: trust and respect. Believable, but deeply painful, that someone could fail to see the law has nothing to do with it, is as ever simply doing its best to emulate and gesture toward an ethical code by pinning the legal age at 18: the spirit of the law is that love requires adequate autonomy in all individuals involved, and this is true. Love may be possible between a middle-aged man and a seventeen year old, in some unwieldy cases: it is not possible when the latter is trapped in the cabin of the former.

That's monstrous; that's evil. Evil simply because it is, in function and spirit and nigh-inevitable consequence, the complete inversion of the good.

But what does it mean, really mean in this world, to take responsibility for yourself?

What does it mean to atone? To be in a state of atonement?

I can take a stand against Alex Reilley, choose deliberately to unleash the full magnitude of my fury, to lose a battle with honor -- to demonstrate my priorities -- that I will gladly fight a fruitless battle with every weapon at my disposal so as to embrace, celebrate even, my loyalty toward my friends.

I can seize the bottle from my mother's hands as I know I am powerless to stop her drinking, if only to cry out to the world "No; I do not consent!" -- meaning nothing, deciding everything.

No power in the world can save those that have no will to save themselves.

But how do I know who cannot be saved until I have reached the true limits of power -- until my every word is fire, and my very gaze is light?

Now, perhaps, I can speak of it; then, I was choked with disgust.

My ability, such as it is, has grown exponentially. My heart is bound together by ties with true friends. My future seems to gleam with messianic promise where before it was a void; I hesitantly glance over my shoulder at the boy I once was. I was so weak; I was so foolish, so inept. How did I even survive? How did I make it this far? Not by my own strength or meager will. I think, perhaps, taking that bottle from my mother was the first good decision I had made in an otherwise abject mess of a life. How did I convince anyone to believe in me, anyway? And now my mother's gifts are my own.

But some things never change.

I knew that day in Tigre: if I confronted that man, I wouldn't know what to say.

I can't forget the lesson I learned that day, when the search for the strength to save my mother proved fruitless. But if I don't acquire the power to compel people that would otherwise devour themselves, how do I take responsibility for this life of mine, what it has become, what it offers? How do I even begin to know what that would entail or mean? If I can't defeat these people, those bereft of empathy, what good is my philosophy -- rules of engagement for those who cannot engage? And how will I know how I am supposed -- to atone for walking away?

That my life is and must be one continuous atonement is what has forged me into an individual; my penance is not to be misunderstood as shame. But as I seek to drive at this illumination, this necessary unifying of religious and existential parlance into a secular accounting of human experience -- this phenomenological, "neo-pragmatic" ontology -- I wonder if I have forgotten the basic failures that haunt my quest. How, truly, do I drag someone out of themselves? How do I do it to myself, when I teeter most dangerously on the edge of that abyss? The philosophical heart of "passion and duty", the notions of sincerity and integrity, hinge on adequately tethering oneself to a contingent and dynamic world. But even given that successful strategies for doing so, given a particular human condition, exist--

To ask how one is to live one's life as a warrior is to ask: When is it appropriate to die?

When I walked away from her, I chose to live for the first time in my life. When she died, so too did everything within me; for months I was a ghost wandering the earth, until the reality of my beating heart could no longer be denied.

In that moment: Did I smash the world to recreate it from its better fragments, or give up my soul to save my hide? I can't remember: Did I choose to live, or did I choose to die?

Am I no longer living on borrowed time? Is this life truly my own?

Death recedes into the distance.

Why do I feel like I've forgotten something important?

Why doesn't that bother me more?

* * *

In fact, I'm quite at peace. We've had two weeks of visitors, and I've gotten little work done during this time; this post is my effort to work out the kinks and stimulate my mind -- and Sarah kindly sent me a lovely e-mail about a week ago that happened to touch on some of my recent reading, which should provide me with a superb excuse to retrace my steps, an activity I'm in dire need of pursuing.

During my fever, unable to concentrate well enough to read, I subsisted on an aggressive array of post-war Japanese films, particularly the Human Condition, a 10-hour epic mirroring the director's -- Kobayashi, famous for his "Kwaidan," an excellent series of four ghost stories; it's in color, I recommend it -- own experiences in Manchuria as a Japanese soldier, in what is at heart a very elaborate character study of one man, gifted and realistic, failing to live up to his ideals in a corrupt world, not because he is corrupted but because he must by nature be complicit. Some movies are very good for "ethical set pieces"; Kurosawa's High and Low, a film noir in which a rich man believes his son to have been kidnapped only to discover the victim was his chauffeur's son instead, is particularly exceptional in that regard. The protagonist's failure, when he is forced to choose between releasing from prison seven men about to die unjustly and his wife's happiness, is understandable -- due more to despair than personal weakness -- as is the catastrophic manner in which he muddles through. In that respect, Human Condition seemed like a game of Heavy Rain played poorly.

Which, by the way, I think is an excellent video game, for all its flaws and incoherence in the plot, and probably one of the most visceral and engaging experiences I've had with the medium (though everyone keeps comparing it to the legendary Silent Hill 2, which was before my time), so if you have a PS3 you should definitely hit that shit up. Imperfect, but truly innovative: NYT Heavy Rain Review (because the New York Times actually has pretty damn good reviews of video games, believe it or not). Final Fantasy XIII, on the other hand, for all the thrill of its soundtrack and its gameplay (once they let you play it), is a disappointing reminder of everything wrong with how Japanese people make role-playing games; it turns out that being the opposite of a terrible game -- Final Fantasy XII -- just makes you terrible in the opposite way. But I always make the most of that sort of thing, just like I did with XII. Remember Romancing Saga, Eugene? When all else fails, suplex the Water Dragon God. That's always fun.

I vacillated for a while on whether I had too little or too much time in this city, when in fact I most likely have just the right amount: if I produce something, I had adequate time to confront the issues at hand; if I don't, no extra amount of time would have changed anything.

Yeah, Adrian brought those two video games with him to Buenos Aires when he visited. I shamelessly used him in lieu of a miserable, unreliable, and expensive postal service. But I like to think we repaid him, with the two best dancing experiences by far that I've had here -- with no small thanks to Adrian himself, lord of the dance floor -- and my not-so-subtle introduction to our one real pal thus far: a tall, blonde, no-nonsense eighteen-year-old from South Carolina taking a year off before Harvard who can dance up a storm. Boom! Let the magic happen. (Actually, I think I was pretty subtle, honestly... certainly subtle enough.)

Party One: TRASHMISSION -- "Una Fiesta Cybertrash Apocaliptica en Seis Etapas" (An Apocalyptic Cybertrash Party in Six Acts)

TRASHMISSION es una fiesta-espacio de experimentación artistica que busca terminar con los sueños de las sociedades pre atómicas, y crea una visión distinta, post detonación, que no tiene más objetivo que "trashear" la percepción del mainstream sobre las modas y tendencias. Que sentido tendrian en una sociedad futurista cyber trash donde los shoppings ahora son sólo casas para ratones ???

(TRASHMISSION is a party-space of artistic experimentation which seeks to do away with dreams of pre-atomic societies, and create a distinct vision, post-detonation, which has no greater objective than to "trash" the mainstream perception of fashion and trends. What would be the point in a futuristic cybertrash society where shopping malls are now only homes for mice ???)

Needless to say, the epic invitational e-mail we received for this party, thanks to Alec's keeping on eye on Wicked Mag, the one hipster publication we discovered, will be forever one of the treasures of my Gmail account.

"The World ends only once, y hay que celebrar con vestimenta acorde."

(Non-literal translation: "The world ends only once; dress accordingly.")

[My end of the world outfit: thanks to Adrian's insight and advice, I finally discovered a satisfactory pairing with my mind-blowing Kyoto jeans, which I've ever struggled to complement without attempting (futilely) to upstage: the black H&M tank-top I bought while shopping with Sarah in LA and one of Alec's red skinny ties from Thailand, tucked into the tank-top as though it were a vest. Fashion analysis: The potential for looking like a gay stripper is overcome, I believe, by the raw intensity of the outfit; in it, I am very clearly serious about dancing. (In my normal jeans, I think I look significantly gayer, if only because the Kyotos aren't so much gay as they are crazy.) I also definitely look like a Final Fantasy character -- or a character from The World Ends With You, which is as it should be. Helping: I am, thanks to boxing and in spite of illnesses (and boxing-related injuries, for that matter: yesterday I got punched in the throat; good times), in the best shape of my life.]

"Trashmission", an exciting mystery in a nightlife world of tragic consistency, ended up, in a way, being exactly what it was billed as: a hipster house party in a post-apocalyptic world -- for hipsters. Which is to say, in Buenos Aires, where there really are no hipsters at all. Hipster house parties can be cool; it turns out that hipster house parties in a world otherwise without hipster house parties can be completely incredible. We burst onto a urban backyard scene of people too hipster to dance listening to a live punk band; we lit a fire, and when we left, most of the crowd was dancing or had danced. We went into the next room, and, Robin, the DJ was playing that remix of Dream in the Desert; naturally I went nuts. We went up the roof, a vast and barren landscape, the music from both dance floors intermingling, wafting up into a world of pure concrete. I danced almost ceaselessly, danceportated everywhere. The crowd was at least 50% foreigners, and it was a huge crowd; in this particular case, that wasn't a problem at all. There weren't even any other dancing heroes, really-- it was just an incredible space. In that very general sense, I was reminded of Collosus, actually, which is the only experience I can call up that paralleled it for me: raw opportunity, so abundant that it becomes irrelevant who else, if anyone, is truly capitalizing upon it, so long as they are there.

Question answered: Yes, passionate sexual dancing is more than adequate self-defense against moshers, and will not interrupt their fun but will earn their wary, grudging respect.

Question not answered: "Cybertrash"?

(Possible answer: silver ribbon scattered everywhere, to be tied around Daniel Bushyhead's forehead. Result: satisfactory.)

Party Two: AMERIKA -- Friday "Canilla Libre y Fiesta de Espuma", a combination of the club's two specialties, free drinks and a late-night foam party

Have I talked about Amerika before? Amerika is most likely the best gay club in Buenos Aires, and I would not be surprised if, its general dearth of attractive people aside -- not a problem for me, understandably disappointing for those I might want to advertise it to, and that, given the nature of the beast, I would be remiss in failing to mention -- it is the best club in the city. It is big, it is friendly, it has sound-proof glass separating two dancefloors and a lounge on three levels, it has no VIP section, it is well-lit and completely open (no walls separate any part of the club from any other, even the higher levels, so you can look out from balconies from both the lounge and the upper dancefloor) -- and it has surprised me in two interesting ways.

Free drinks night is, to my surprise, a great idea. Cover gets expensive, though not come-here-for-the-prostitutes VIP expensive -- 60 pesos, $15 -- but the drinks are free all night; this includes bottles of water, which are sometimes just lined up next to the cups of decent beer that are regularly poured from countless forty-ounce glass bottles. I thought it might get sloppy, but say what you like about Argentines -- and I will -- they aren't drunkards. More importantly, it sets a very relaxed, casual tone, without lines or stress or harassment. People walk up, take a beer, and wander away. I know I do, frequently. I guess I never appreciated the positive possibilities in an open bar -- only the dangerous ones -- but done right, it can make a night a whole lot better: once you're in, you're in.

And foam parties, to my surprise, can be very fun. Now, when the foam is settling in the room upon your arrival, I'm convinced you're in for a world of sketch. But when, at four in the morning, after hours of dancing, foam explodes from giant black spigots on the ceiling high above and pours in a ceaseless rain upon a huge expanse, people are generally just having too much fun to pull any weird shit. And, hey, it's soap. I don't know if I'd ever want to go to a foam party that wasn't like Amerika's -- with foam spontaneously emerging from the aether atop people already enjoying themselves -- but my mind has been broadened.

The combination of a Buenos Aires nightclub, free alcohol, foam from the sky, and Adrian Laurence Harris: what could possibly make this a better night?

Well, it so happened that when we exploded onto the dance floor, a gaggle of about ten Brazilian girls celebrating a birthday were watching from the lounge above, and were apparently so impressed by our stand-out dancing (more on that subject below) that several of their more ambitious members immediately ventured down to join us. Within half an hour they had summoned their entire group and were our almost constant companions throughout the night. The girls who joined us initially in particular just struck me as exceptional dancing teammates: responsible for their friends but open to adventure, aware of danger and firm in avoiding it, active and never dismayed. Not exactly "studious", but -- this encounter alone has earned Brazilians my sincere respect.

I do wish they were taller, though, because dancing with one of them was the equivalent of two hours of wall-sits. Honestly took me days to recover.

But when else am I going to dance with ten Brazilian girls covered in foam?

My lasting impression, naturally, is that I am pleased to be the manner of man who, encountering dancing foam-clad Brazilian girls, feels of all things solidarity.

* * *

Things I miss about America:

- Food

Buenos Aires is the midwest.

The rest of the country theoretically eats stew and fish. I am currently prepared to murder someone for fish stew. We eat steak and potatoes. There are literally three things you can eat in the City of a Single Menu: steak, empanadas, and pizza. We try to cycle through. The steak is good, but overhyped; it would be better with some sort of side sauce or marinade, which they have not yet invented. Argentines love pizza; Argentine pizza uses cheese the way we use tomato sauce; the Lonely Planet suggests not mentioning how bad (and greasy, and comparatively flavorless, unless "salty" is your flavor of choice) the result is, though certain restaurants do serve a superior form of grilled pizza. We suspect they do not like tomato sauce because there tend to be herbs and spices in it. There are no spices here. You literally cannot buy them in most supermarkets. Except salt; there is salt on everything; there is extra salt on the ham that will sneak its way into your meal. There are no sauces, except on pasta. But there is much mayonnaise. Ham and cheese are used as condiments. I remember when I used to like ham; perhaps someday I will again. There is no soup, which would be a welcome relief from the bricks that must otherwise inhabit your stomach; I have seriously not once seen soup on a menu. (Alec says he saw cream of mushroom once.) But they do like sushi; it's very vogue right now. They make it with canned tuna and cream cheese.

We tend to eat a lot of cereal.

We managed to find a shawarma place closeby. I realized why it tasted so incredibly delicious: because shawarma involves a tasty sauce that they put on the meat.

When I return to America, I am going to eat Indian food; then I am going to eat Thai food; then I am going to eat Japanese food; then I am going to eat Korean food; and I am going to cycle through these four for the rest of my life until I die.

Two days of Chile was like heaven. Argentine food is hell.

I never imagined I, of all people, would end up spending so much time thinking about food.

- Studious Girls

Nobody even wears glasses in this country.

I acquire a renewed appreciation, one I did not think could be further enhanced, for the culture of independence in America. So many people our age seem to live with their parents. Our Spanish tutor, Claudio, who's lived in LA, suggests that Americans are simply more mature at this age than Argentines (which I think says a lot if his experience of America is primarily from Los Angeles) because of such factors. Alec and I, at least, are inclined to agree, not out of a sense of superiority but out of a vague despair at an inability to find engaging conversation partners, or people who seem devoted to or passionate about really anything. This is a city where you can get away with that. Needless to say, none of the three of us are ending up with much respect for "Argentine culture."

In all seriousness, there are many very attractive people in this city, particularly those our age; young men are fit and young women consistently have exceptional figures. Buenos Aires is the plastic surgery capital of the world, and I can't tell who's gotten it (well, not until they age). But let's face it: the aesthetic I look for -- whatever weird physical amalgamation I believe to indicate that sweet and earnest spirit I deem "studious" -- is not to be found here. It's just not.

And it turns out gay guys are pretty much the same everywhere, even when they're highly mainstreamed. I'm somehow unsurprised.

I think my most nostalgic moment in this city was seeing a girl in glasses walk by holding a thick biology textbook to her chest. She might even have been Asian. Maybe I made that part up.

I don't get the impression that people go out to let their hair down after hard work, or to relax their mind after intense focus. When it comes to nightlife, I think this is just what this subset of the population does. And the lack of release or built-up charge might explain the dearth of

- Good Dancers

There's simply not enough intensity at the boliches. It's a primarily social environment, and therefore often awkward, because clubs are terrible environments in which to socialize conventionally. Argentines will nevertheless engage in the most elaborate courtship ritual I've ever seen, where a man will literally spend up to an hour talking to a woman on the dance floor. There are consistent stages to the ritual I am considering cataloging: inevitably, at about the half-hour mark, the man will give the girl a little twirl, a bit of dance mimicry that does not lead to dancing but instead further (most likely inaudible) conversation.

I'd even be grateful for some tango, hyper-ritualized though it is. Most likely, though, such an endeavor would become a spectator sport.

But, my god, they are determined; that cannot be understated. How could they not be, given how much time they invest into it? Adrian's first encounter with such nonsense was a cause for great indignation, which I confess gratified me immensely, since obviously I was initially the only one who cared. He demanded we intervene with one pair after about twenty minutes, and out of curiosity I agreed; we double-teamed the poor guy from behind with much aggressive whooping. He quickly glanced over his shoulder at us-- and then proceeded to ignore us completely and continue his conversation with the very perplexed girl. We kept this up for a full minute before finally giving up; he did not even acknowledge us once we stopped. It was frankly incredible. I had to applaud him.

Of course, his long-ass conversation didn't get him anywhere, which, while tragic, tends to be the result. I feel terrible for these people; do they even have any fun at these places? Maybe it's like fishing, you know. They somehow learn to appreciate the tedium, whetting their appetite for when they finally catch a fish. Or maybe it's like Monopoly: you forget it's slow-paced and unrewarding when it's the only game available.

Glamorous though the women can be, I'm somehow grateful for my obscure tastes; I'll never be reduced to participating in such an unfortunate and lengthy rite.

But then, part of the problem may be the utter lack of

- Good Music

I thought there was supposed to be house music in this country.

Scratch that: I thought house music was supposed to involve a melody. The electronica here is not so much minimalist as it is bland. There are no real transitions; the emphasis is always the beat, not the melody or vocals, and the beat is inevitably generic (Crobar being by far the worst offender, even worse than Womb in Tokyo, the experience that drove me to the brink of insanity). There have been a few rare exceptions, like the live performance of wacky European electro artists at Zizek, an event at Club Niceto, or an odd room at my second and recent trip to Crobar where two men, one armed with a computer and one with a base guitar, produced live electronic music together, which I felt the people present did not appreciate nearly enough. And there was that night at Kika with the hip-hop mashups, though I was definitely hungry for hip-hop by that point. For the most part, there's not a great deal of original music in this town, as far as I can tell. Or rather: I just can't seem to find good DJs for the life of me, though there was that one young guy at Trashmission that knew what he was doing. I'm beginning to understand why a lot of people don't like electronica: there's a lot more bad electronic music out there than I ever realized.

But I wonder if people would appreciate the music more if it were good. Experiences of good music don't seem to heat up the dance floor that much. No, I am making a sweeping generalization, but I'm not saying all Argentines have no or bad taste. I merely mean to suggest: perhaps good music is not essential to what Argentines want from a boliche, just as good food or even a good aesthetic is not what explains why Argentines go to one restaurant instead of the fundamentally identical one across the street. I honestly feel like they wouldn't notice if that restaurant did serve better food, because it wouldn't matter -- and by that same token, perhaps they wouldn't notice more dynamic, stirring music.

Is it questions of status? Is it simply being part of the mode?

I need to meet a hip, intelligent Argentine who can explain this all to me.

And finally, what I miss most of all from America:

- Chai Monster


[Poo Chai.jpg - image and filename unaltered]

Not specifically Chai Monster, majestic though he is (see above), but American dogs in general, for while there are many dogs in Buenos Aires, none of them are particularly friendly. I am beginning to suspect they do not speak the aw-woo-woo-woo-based dog language I was taught as a child:


There you finally have it, my origin story.

* * *

And yet this is what I wanted. If I don't work, nothing gets done. There's no driver's license to get, no classes to teach, nothing new in venturing out into the evening alone; there's no question that I could simply live my life without philosophy, profoundly blessed by the comfort of my inheritance, easily exchanging conviction for peace of mind. No, for all Buenos Aires's charms and lack of substance -- not so much "developed" as "having ceased to develop" -- none of us are willing to "pay to play." (And, BA, perhaps that's fair, considering what you've gone through -- just as perhaps it would be "fair" for me to spend the rest of my days in Seattle.) Here, there is only me, my books, and my confusions, confusions too easily buried under a highly refined and compelling veneer, an armor with chinks obscured by fervor and sentiment. The madness has not come again as it did that first night. I succumb only to stagnation, but I roll on. No, this is still training: it will be training until I am worthy of foes, until I clench more than dreams in my fist. But it is no Interlude. My quest cannot end here. There are only lulls, as I struggle, with my books and my pen, to learn of the history of my own thought, and, in this dreamy city, to remind myself of death.

I am determined to be great.

Today, that sounds strange even to me. And maybe someday I'll know better. But I am young -- and with every breath I seem to swell, overburdened with system, lines of fire traced behind my eyes. I feel it in my bones: I can't go for more than another year like this. There are battles to be fought. There are rivals to be earned. There are too many words to be spoken. Fame is nothing: I need to be heard like a flame needs to burn.

It's bullshit, but who knows? I'll do my thing, and see what happens.

You all know me well enough for me to say such things. Still, vanity is bound up in passion, though not, perhaps, in the obvious way; even with nothing to prove or image to have affirmed -- hard-won victories of the soul -- I sometimes still dream of destiny, and its ultimate antidote to any self-loathing. But I don't think I can help it. And I do have one advantage: an object lesson.

She was just the same.

Some things never change.