Radio Silence, Broken

What better way to announce a return from an exile to, well, from nowhere except TooMuchWorkBurg, than an inspiring photo of that place we all love but do not know: The Palace of the French Fry. On a visit to Avenida Corrientes, we came, we saw, and we did not conquer. But we’re curious.

Since I last wrote so much has happened, so much water under the bridge (so much interesting water, yes; but not Big Exciting water), that to try to review it all would be to risk resorting to a Dull Daily Diary (and being compared to a blogger; oh, right). So instead I’ll cough up two very brief thematic hairballs and promise—promise—to return to writing with regularity.

The wonder and danger of most expatdom is that it usually combines mastering a new language and a new culture simultaneously, which makes it very easy to make pat generalizations by confusing linguistic peculiarities with cultural differences : “A-ha, in Spanish they often use the same word—mal—to mean ‘bad’ and ‘evil’; Obviously they cannot discern the differences between the two,” or something of that sort. There might be some gem lodged in observations like these, but more than not it’s more of a “gollee, they talk different” thing. The two that follow hopefully rise above this.

The Day of the Friend

To the many greeting-card-company holidays in the world—Father’s Day, Secretary’s Day, Lawn Care Professional’s Day—Argentina adds its own, supposedly not Hallmark-endorsed, title: The Day of the Friend. At first glance, who could really argue with setting a day aside to celebrate friendship because, really, what else smoothes out life’s sharp elbows like friendship? Blanche DuBois’s extemporizing aside, it’s not the kindness of strangers that makes the world go ‘round.

But perhaps they should have done some market testing on this bush league holiday. Why? Well, we’re told the downside of friendship day here in Buenos Aires is that it has the counterintuitive effect of rupturing friendships. How, you may ask (we certainly did). It seems the problem is simple: while the objects of many such holidays are obvious—on Father’s Day, you give Dad something, duh—Friendship Day creates hurtful ambiguity. To celebrate it, one goes out to dinner with one’s best friends. But table space is limited—it’s notoriously impossible to get a good 9:30 dinner rez on the Day of the Friend—which means that triage in the order of the day. Some friends get invited on the Day of the Friend, some don’t. And Day of the Friend becomes Day of the Lost Friend. Or, rather, Day of Choosing and Losing Your Friends.

Noooo, a vos!

In Buenos Aires, there exists a congenital inability to accept thanks. I’m not talking about people being usued to being thanked for everything, to the general feeling that Americans beat“thank you” like a dead horse and thereby render it into the equivalent of a conversational tic like“like” (which is sorta true). No, I’m talking about the endearing fact that Argentina is the so far the only country I’ve visited where without exception the answer to “Thank you” is “No.” At a restaurant, gas station, post office, flower shop, clothing store, wherever, a “Thank you” or compliment will invariably be greeted with a variation on one of the following responses: Nooooo, for what?; Nooooo, for nothing; Nooooo, to you; Nooooo, to the contrary; or the classically simple, Nooooooo. As if one wants to avoid Compliment Debt at all costs (which, considering the country’s constant credit crunch, is not surprising). Last night we went to a 339th anniversary celebration in Quilmes, a Bs.As. suburb, to hear local band Catupecu Machu (a kind of Argentine Pearl Jam whose latest disk ain’t bad). I swear, when the lead singer said “Thank you Quilmes! Thank you all for coming out!” the response from the crowd was rousing applause and a one word chorus that seemingly arose from a pre-rational corner of the Argentine mind: Noooooooooo, for nothing!

Lastly, I just wanted to give another nod to my one-time home of New Orleans. When we traveled to swamptastic Tigre two days before the hurricane hit NOLA, I snapped the following photo because. Looking at it now, it place reminds me of southern Louisiana so much it makes my heart sick. See ya soon New Orleans, ‘cause I know you’ll be back.