Henry Emiliano Mount

Yesterday, on the first day of Spring (at least here in Buenos Aires), at 8:10 p.m., Cintra gave birth to Henry Emiliano Mount. He's beautiful, curious, active—and quite the bruiser at 8 lbs. 10 oz., 20 1/2" long. He's admittedly a bit surprised by the world we live in, but he has agreed that he won't try to return to the womb. And he's handling his baby duties—eating, sleeping, peeing, pooping and screaming—with aplomb. Welcome, Henry Emiliano! We love you already. – Ian & Cintra

Ayer, en el primer día de la primavera (por lo menos acá en Buenos Aires), a las 20,10 hs., Cintra dio a luz a Henry Emiliano Mount. Es lindo y activo y está bien curioso--y que grandote, que cabezón con 3.934 kilos y 52 cm. La verdad es que está un poco sorprendido por el mundo en el que vivimos, pero está de acuerdo con nosotros que no tratará volver a la panza. Y está desempeñando sus obligaciones infantiles—comiendo, durmiendo, haciendo caca y pis, y gritando—con aplomo. Bienvenidos Henry Emiliano! Ya te amamos. – Ian y Cintra

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Neighborhood Audio Guides

First a useful blog and now this? Further proving that municipal websites can actually be worthwhile and, gulp, hip, Buenos Aires site offers MP3 audio guides to 12 neighborhoods that can be downloaded to your iPod (or whatever) and act as a kind of canned tour guide. Credit where credit is due: I first heard about these today from a Jult post from TrendHunter Buenos Aires. You heard it here second.

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Do I look fat in this?

The 10th month of pregnancy is hands down the hardest so far. The not-so-little-one has moved from a punto to bien hecho. Any day now, any day...

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The Great Fleece War of 2006

In an interesting new front in Argentina's tussle with foreign money, former piquetero movement leader and the government's current subsecretary of land and social habitat Luis D'Elía has declared war on foreign manufacturers of wool and fleece winterwear popular with hikers, skiers and other upper middle class land-lovers. Or so it seems. In August, D'Elía cut open the entrance to North Face and Esprit founder--and conservationist mogul--Douglas Tompkins's property in the Corrientes province, accusing Tompkins (above) of trying to control one of Argentina's strategic resources, fresh water, and saying the land should be expropriated. Tompkins suggested, dryly one would assume, that the government "should make things easier for investors." (To fully set the drama in Argentina and Chile, Tompkins is married to Kristine McDivitt, the former CEO of fleece-seller Patagonia.)

Realizing (one supposes) that this was not a winning move on the international circuit, President Kirchner quickly distanced himself from D'Elía's moves. But this didn't stop the ex-piquetero, who moved his target to Benetton, which owns some 900,000 hectareas in southern Argentina. Claiming that Benetton had illegally gained possesion of the land of several local Mapuche indian families and again that the land should be expropriated, he said that when the government decided what it would do, "it will be sufficiently convincing." Benetton's corporate rep said, "We have learned about the situation from the media and we are currently conducting a deep analysis and defining the company's reaction," while the Mapuche families being helped by D'Elía rejected his methods (though they want their land back).

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It's Official: Maradona is God

As we've pointed out more than once, Argetina has a, er, slight obsession with soccer star / national-analogy / bloated-cokehead / recovery-tale / TV-star Diego Armando Maradona. With two recent pieces of Maradonia, however, he may have been promoted from obsession to diety. Thursday saw the opening of Carlos Sorín's new movie, El Camino de San Diego (yes, The Path of St. Diego), a tale of a humble boy from Missiones province who finds a large root that resembles Maradona's face and decides to get to Buenos Aires--by foot if necessary--in order to deliver it to his idol, who is in a hospital recovering from heart problems.

Before that, however, I received an email press release announcing that four Maradona fanatics from Mar del Plata were creating and consecrating a monument to St. Diego. Started August 10 and sculpted by a professor of visual arts named Elizabeth Eichhorn, the monument (above) will stand 2.20 meters tall; this "gift of the people" will be installed wherever Maradona wants it (if he offers an opinion). As the creators say on their website, "Effort bears fruit--and more, when one makes an effort for love."

And of coures, the Iglesia Maradoniana--the Church of Maradona--has existed for eight years. It dates the beginning of time to October 30, 1960--Maradona's day of birth.

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Enigmatic Stencil Graffiti

Two more stencils, one asserting (and then rejecting) Nazism, the second saying something eloquently incomprehensible about women with differently shaped breasts, the flying penises who put them on a pedestal--you know, the usual.

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La Guerra "Pampita"

There's nothing quite like a celebrity break-up and slugfest to intrigue the hidden Us Weekly side of yours truly's heart. Even fire-cured as we are by the U.S. celebrity standards set by Charlie Sheen/Denise Richards and Nick Lachay/Jessica Simpson, however, we were shocked--shocked--by the vitriol we've been hearing in the Argentine version, that of the nasty breakdup of Ana Carolina Ardohain Dos Santos (AKA Maxim girl "Pampita") and polo player/businessguy Martín Barrantes (the pair is pictured at left in happier times). A brief history: the two were married in 2003 and separated in 2005; earlier this year, she and Chilean actor Benjamín Vicuña (whose swank new Santiago restaurant, Amorío, I visited in May) had a baby while she was still mid-divorce with Barrantes. Recently she went on Argy TV celeb Mirtha Legrand's show and said that Barrantes was asking for a settlemnt that was, "enormous, impossible to pay." In response, Barrantes went on journalist Daniel Tognetti's TV show Blog and engaged in soul-baring and honesty that we haven't seen since--well, since all U.S. celebs were required 200 hours of media training and constant companionship of at least four PR mavens. We'll let his words speak for themselves:

"You're married with me and you go to the hot restaurant of Chile with that country's most famous actor. And you say that it doesn't matter. When I asked her, she said, 'That's the press.'...I don't miss her at all. The truth is I don't miss her a damn. I don't want to see her from 800 kilometers away. If she could go to Russia instead of Chile, that would be better. She made an exhibition of infidelity, an ostentation, it didn't matter to her at all. She didn't care for me a bit. She threw me to the lions..."

With respoect to his current life, he said that walking on the streets people give him the finger. "The kids yell at me, 'Cuckold!" The laughter fucks with me because it's the truth...This story of the divorce I want to take straight on. I want the people to know the truth. I have my ego on the floor, but fine. This is for honor. Money is one thing but not the main thing. This has hurt my image, and when I do business I have to explain that I'm not what she says..."

I believe they designed the initials TMI--Too Much Information--for situations like this. If I were English I might say, "Get a hold of yourself, man." But not too soon; I have to admit, guiltily, that we're enjoying this.

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Ugh. Not again: The Palermo Crime Wave

Anteanoche -- that is, the night before last (side q: why doesn't English have a convenient, single word for this?) -- another Palermo restaurant was attacked by juvenile delinquents. This time it was a place I've never been called Paradigma, on Armenia's 1200 block. A group of young thugs took money & personal effects from 6 customers and the manager at 10:30 PM (eating prime time). A member of the local police force chased the group & apprehended an 18 year old.

About 6 or 7 hours later (5 AM-ish), Cacharel (photo from La Nacion, above), on Honduras's 4800 block, was robbed of pesos, dollars, vouchers & merchandise. La Nacion links these Palermo Viejo crimes to a wave that started in May, when Meridiano 58 was hit, followed by 5 other area restaurants in July.

Area police assure us that they've upped their vigilance in the area, but some of the barrio's merchants say the police only keep a special lookout for those businesses that pay additional security fees (i.e., hire guards who also work as policemen, I suppose?). Concerned neighbors are calling Palermo a zona liberada, which led me on another linguistic side trip. Zona liberada -- literally, "liberated zone" -- seems to be a uniquely Argentine term to describe a lawless place or a No Man's Land. On one language message board, readers write in that they've never heard the term used in Spain, Colombia, El Salvador, Mexico, Nicaragua nor Peru. But here in Argentina, it seems a odd term to use in an article that describes the immediate arrest of a thief. Maybe the member of the police force (in the article described as "un efectivo de la comisaría 25a") was moonshining at the time?

From Saturday's La Nacion:

Palermo, otra vez ví­ctima del delito
Anteanoche robaron en un restaurante y ayer a la madrugada en un local de ropa; los vecinos hablan de "zona liberada"

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La Pasión Boquense

Is it possible to push Argentina's well-documented obsession with fútbol too far? If so, this does it: The Boca Juniors soccer squad has announced that it will open a cemetery--tricked out in its logo and colors--for ardent fans and former stars and coaches. Located about 33 km outside the city of Buenos Aires, the 3,000 Boca plots in the Cementerio Parque Iraola will go for between $900 and $5,000 (USD). From an AP article on the opening:

Antonio Ubaldo Rattin, a famous Boca goalkeeper from the 1960s, attended the inauguration and remarked how the cemetery was tastefully done.

"It's so beautiful, you almost wish you could stay," he declared. He insisted Boca is first in everything "and now in a cemetery."

Indeed, that's the word that comes to mind: Tasteful.

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Bayres City Gov Blog

El Gato Negro (por Pasa en Buenos Aires)

Doing our occasional jog through fellow bloggers, we came across an interesting post from Buenos Aires: City of Faded Elegance (though I prefer "Buenos Aires: City of Aggressive Mullets"). It seems that as of May the city of B.A. itself has gotten into the blogging business via its interesting Pasa en Buenos Aires blog, now permalinked on the right. Where else would I learn that famed 80-year-old tea-house/café/bistro El Gato Negro might have to close--like Bar Britanico before it--becasue of losing its lease. Or that legendary art-house cinema Cosmos is to also be closed (and turned into a hotel)? Nice job, chabón. Now I have another site with which to waste my time.

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Gay-Positive Stencils in San Telmo

Pro-gay...but defaced by less positive "scratchiti."

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Dictatorship, Reconsidered

We have, admittedly, written our share about Argentina's 1976-1983 dictatorship. A recent turn of events deserves another post: an Argentine federal court on Tuesday ruled unconstitutional former president Carlos Menem's pardon of Jorge Rafael Videla, the first head of that dictatorship. This is the latest step in a re-opening of trials into flagrant human rights abuses (i.e. up to 30,000 killed) during that dictatorship. But what is interesting about this case in a second-order sense is how it affects the other side. Menem's pardon's extended to the leaders of the dictatorship as well as to guerilla chiefs such as Montoneros leaders Fernando Vaca Narvaja, Roberto Perdía and Mario Firmenich--but said guerillas were not affected by the current ruling on the theory that because their crimes (which include the 1970 execution of Pedro Eugenio Aramburu, a former military president of Argentina) were not committed by the state, they didn't amount to high crimes against humanity. Menem not surprisingly criticized the move, and as we've noted before, conservative/reactionary/pro-dictator (you pick your title) writers like the Wall Street Journal's Mary Anastasia O'Grady have been calling for the blood of these former Montonero leaders. While I certainly could never side with repression apologists, this current case raises an interesting question: if you remove the immunity given to one side of a civil war, do you have to remove that same immunity given to the other side as well?

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Santiago de Chile in NYT

In a blatant attempt to climb the list of most emailed and most read articles on their site, I hereby flog an article I wrote about Santiago, Chile in tomorrow's Travel section of the New York Times. In the intro, I mention that the atmospheric pollution there can make it feel like you're looking through the bottom of a dirty beer mug (at least in the colder months; you can get lovely Andes views other times). This not-so-felicitous effect is caused in part by the fact that the city, like the D.F. in México, is surrounded by mountains, a toilet bowl effect that doesn't let the smog leave. Being that they say a picture is worth +/- 1,000 words--and being that I don't want to bore the world with a long description here--here are four photos.

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