it must be car week

bang the drum

I went to a jazz club called Thelonius twice this past week. Here's a drummer during the second set Friday night.

a little night music

I went to a little house party last weekend and toted my camera. This photo is in the beginning of the night, before the dancing but after the empanadas. I liked this guy's socks.



Because my Spanish is still coming along, parties can be really hard for me--you know, the whole not being able to communicate thing. But if there's music and dancing, I can hang with that.

bicentennial

This year Argentina is celebrating its bicentennial. In Palermo there is a pavilion with an exhibit about the history of the country.

palermo balconies

I find Palermo to be a largely uninspiring area of the city--well, during daylight hours. Then you see how cardboard and pushed together all the apartment buildings seem. But they all do have balconies, and a lot of them are shaded by these weirdly tall trees.

telecom skyline

This was the view from the balcony of the friend's apartment I stayed at this past week.



Those three outrageously tall telecom towers crack me up. I shot this on a very grey day, but you can really see the grime and colors of the buildings that make Buenos Aires so charming to me. There's an air pollution problem here, which give the buildings this dirty look. And then there will be these brand-new glass-and-concrete luxury lofts in the midst. These lofts aren't dirty yet--they're too new--but I can imagine that they will look mighty different in a few years.

Luxury Hideout

With all the flooding and power outages, I decided to leave my house and stay at a friend-of-a-friend's in Palermo, one of the very swank areas of town. I was upset about the situation at home, but I've gotta say it's really nice to stay somewhere posh for a few nights. It is like living in a hotel. I've only met this girl twice and now I'm living in her apartment while she is out of town. Life is great like that. This luxury hideout even has a rooftop pool. Unfortunately I can't use it because of all the rain.



This morning I came in around 5 a.m. and sat for a spell with one of the security guards. I have no recollection what we talked about, or that I even took this photo, but hey, here it is. I do remember that when I stood to get in the elevator, I said good-bye and gave him a kiss on the cheek, which is normal in Buenos Aires, but probably not with the security guards. But you know how once you start going in for the kiss, you can't just change your mind and do a handshake. That would be even weirder.


PS: For anyone who likes Jeff Bridges as much as I do, there's a great photo feature in the NYTimes Magazine that is worth checking out.

lunes typica

The nights in Buenos Aires go on forever, even Monday nights. Maybe especially Monday nights, because you just don't expect anything to really happen on a Monday night.



Ernesto called Plaza Serrano "the heart of Palermo." It is not even a plaza, not really, but a clustering of open-air bars around a triangular playground. Some of the bars don't close. Or, some will close for an hour between 6 and 7 a.m., during which time they won't serve you, but you can still chill.

Palermo is full of tourists and expats. This is Piero, an Italian currently living in Barcelona and visiting Argentina. I managed to hang with him well past sunrise without a single word of English passing between us.