a book about urban myths of Buenos Aires. The authors went beyond just telling stories —they investigated, talked to locals supposedly involved, & looked for origins & explanations. Some were plain stupid, but others were hilarious…
- a buffet restaurant in Belgrano where the Chinese mafia comes in, kills a guy & he’s then served in a stew the next day.
- a guy from northern Argentina who comes here to study medicine but is kicked out due to poor grades. He returns to his training hospital occasionally to perform random operations on the unsuspecting. Just for the heck of it. That’s only *one* block from where I live.
- a taxi driver at the Chacarita cemetery who is actually the Grim Reaper himself. Stories come from those who escaped by throwing themselves from the cab.
- my favorite: the vampire dwarf of Flores. Some reject Romanian circus performer who attacked dogs, cats & the occasional person… until he got beat up & decided to move on.
I just got back from visiting the Policía Federal to request a criminal history record. More residency crap to do. You would not believe the line… imagine the worst day at your local DMV & multiply it by 3. So basically I chickened out. It’s hot & I didn’t have the patience to deal with that kind of thing today. I’m hoping Monday will be better —either less people there or more patience on my part.
[A little lo-fi nostalgia… original content from Line of Sight, reposted to commemorate 20 years of blogging. Learn more.]
A favorite urban legend circulating among my Korean students is the one about the terrible fate of a scuba diver scooped up from the ocean into a helicopter’s water tank, and dropped onto a raging bushfire in California. Thanks to snopes.com I was able to check the illegitimacy of this claim, but it does make a good story.