Yesterday, the public radio show Marketplace ran a story I put together on the possibility of beef and wheat shortages in Argentina. Enjoy.

The cover of yesterday's "Espectáculos" section

Yesterday afternoon, I was lurching down Santa Fe in a taxi--speed, honk, skid--late to a meeting (as usual) when I saw that Zizek and its musical progeny, digital cumbia, was featured on the cover of Clarín's "espectáculos" section. Couldn't happen to nicer guys--Zizek founders Grant Dull (of WhatsUpBuenosAires), Villa Diamante and DJ Nim (of Bomboclap Records)--hit on a bright idea with a cumbia digital party, and worked hard to make it real (and take it international). The article gives a good appraisal of the whole phenomena, but the most interesting part was an opinion piece by Pablo Schanton that accompanied it. The idea was to try to explain the big question of "Why Digital Cumbia? Why Now?" and in the piece Schanton touches on some important themes. He hits (rightly, to my eye) on the middle class's gradual embrace of working and lower class tastes (i.e. cumbia), the influx of tourists and expats (seeing local culture with new eyes) and the petering out of exhausted musical genres in the U.S. and Europe (leaving music fans hungry for something new). I hit on similar themes last year in a feature on the Buenos Aires art and design scene in Crystallized, and I think they go a long way in explaining the (admittedly gradual) acceptance of some of the non-European traditions that have been long ignored here in Argentina, at least in "high" or "export" culture. Right on, Pablo.