Nestled into the center of a busy intersection in Caballito, surrounding buildings dwarf a statue of El Cid Campeador by American sculptor Anna Hyatt Huntington. Traffic noise also prevents any quiet contemplation of my personal favorite statue… but that can be avoided by going early on Sunday mornings for a look at this fantastic piece of public art, cleaned & restored in 2006:
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In the past ten years, Buenos Aires has come a long way in terms of preserving city heritage. New organizations have formed, especially on neighborhood level, keeping watch over the city’s buildings & blowing the whistle when sneaky developers try to destroy what makes BA so unique. That said, one particular building sums up everything wrong about the city’s attitude toward conservation: the Confitería del Molino.
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Since I’ve become such a fan of Buenos Aires architecture, I’ll begin a series of posts about our best architects in order to highlight who have made BA such a joy to walk around. There’s no better place to start than the grandfather of all BA architects, Alejandro Christophersen.
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Although new to writing book reviews, “Radiografía de la Pampa” by Ezequiel Martínez Estrada left such an impact on me that I feel obliged to discuss it here. The book is filled with complicated ideas & is notoriously difficult to read, so maybe I can gain some insight by writing about it… as well as get ideas from others who read this post.
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Being Easter Sunday, what better time to write about churches in Buenos Aires? Easter is probably my least favorite holiday of the year as it brings back memories of being dragged unwillingly to church… be it Lutheran, Methodist or Presbyterian. It never mattered much since we didn’t attend service any other day of the year. Seriously. However, after 12 years of extended stays in Spain & Portugal —plus living in Argentina for over 10 years— I may as well be Catholic by default.
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I’m not an enormous fan of tango, but there are quite a few songs that I’ve grown to love. And before you ask, no… I’ve never taken a dance lesson. Far from being clumsy on my feet —I grew up in Memphis, after all— it’s one of those cultural experiences I keep saying I’ll do one day.
That day has yet to arrive, but I thought of something yesterday when Jeff & I were discussing the difficulties of translation. He’s done a very nice month-long series of posts about Borges since June 2006 was the 20th anniversary of his death. We had trouble agreeing on how to translate one simple line of poetry, so I decided to take the ultimate challenge… translating a tango song. I think I’m asking for trouble.
Read More »argentina: no soy muy tanguero