I have been really sick lately with a bad cold and neverending cough, possibly on the mend so hopefully i'll be healthy for patrick (tuesday!!). But yesterday staying in gave me the excuse to draw aaaall day. I drew funny hairstyles and some pictures of people with really good hair which I can never do and some cartoons and made 9 new pages in this kind of zine I am making that is not really a zine but kind of a homemade design experiment. And I decided I am going to paint a mural on the stairs going up to my room because my landlord is a pelotudo and is in Spain plus it will be nice so I think he will be happy. I think something like a bird flying off with heartstrings trailing behind followed by a school of flying colorful fish that chase the sun. And I also found all these friends of friends art websites and got suuuper inspired which is a great feeling. I got ideas for plans for two other drawings which will be 1. Half An upclose detail of my inner ear and half a cross section of the surrounding vicinity meaning Av. Juan de Garay as heard from my window. And the other will be a really up close of my toenail and a cross section of everything there like bacteria and sock lint and dogpoop etc.
I also tried to learn how to play the kalimba but I really don't know anything about instruments so I don't even know how to tune it or what the notes are. Which is sort of more fun but I also need someone to explain some things to me so I can get further. I recorded some musical doodles on my cassette recorder for fun and it is nice to listen to something and think hey! I made that! And I found these two books I brought from the usa on Latin American art and performance art that I hadn't looked at in months and now I realized I know a lot about the artists and the articles are so much more interesting now. Man, today was an art day! Those are my favorites. And his morning i went to this argentine artists house, his name is Carlos Uría (I think he's pretty famous, I don't know. He uses really bright colors and makes fun playful paintings) but he is dying and really sick with lung cancer (and still smoking). but it was really great to get to see his studio and talk to him and listen to stories and see paintings.
I've been obsessing about monsters again (as always?) Probably they are my favorite things to imagine and draw. So I am thinking of drawing a monster book, well I've been thinking of doing it for a while but now maybe I will really do it. like lots of chest hair and many eyes and maybe cilia for legs and fangs and tails and scales and large hairy toes. Probably if there was nothing serious to think about in the world I would most like to sit under trees and eat vegan food with friends drawing monsters together singing along to music and having sleepovers and bike rides and sitting in flowers. Maybe that is what I do mostly anyway. Right now. What would you do if there was nothing to fight for? Is that a silly question? Is aiming to make a difference actually the most interesting part? Would it be boring if there was nothing to do but sit and watch baseball all day without thinking and analyzing? too many details into my stream of conscience? this is what sitting inside in bed for 4 days does.
i really wish i could have been at the 80th birthday weekend. I miss all of you more than you probably think. and grandmom too. a lot!
1.8.07
27.7.07
i have no internet in the house so i haven´t been able to write. things here are beautiful: cooking lunch to eat in the park, costume parties, conversations, bicycling, concerts at the huerta, planning the trip to mendoza, the sun, cookies, banana ginger nut smoothies, living in friend´s houses, chinatown, hunts through the city for vegan icecream etc.
15.7.07
recently
dude i've been gone for a year! the past weeks have been really nice, here's what's happening a little.
back in june it was aneta's bday and me and this old man named mario made 20 pizza doughs and then only about 20 people came to her party and spoke esperanto all night playing with balloons so we have had pizzas coming out of our ears.
i made these ones for sean's birthday last tuesday. which was a really funny party that we had here too and all these people from a hiphop collective here in the city came and freestyled for us all night.
and it snowed! man it was so fun! we ventured out into the cold that night and had a snowball fight with some neighborhood kids and ran around for a couple of hours and i am now really sick but igual it was really special for it to have happened. except for all the homeless people who died and the fact that it's snowing here means climate change is pretty real. everything feels pretty real lately.
and i redid my room and have a place to hang things and an art corner and some more space.
and the huerta! it really sucks and the government has been trying to turn it into a park and bulldoze it. turning a functioning growing community garden into a fenced in "green space" seems pretty ridiculous but I guess its always like that. so we've been having some demonstrations in front of the Jefaturia but mostly just still going and having all sorts of music and food and workshops. sometimes i feel really uncomfortable there not really being part of the scene but also i'm meeting them and still i think its my favorite part of bs as. this was today:
my friend Fede singing made up songs
composting.
Facu and Erny with my bike in the elevator
.and they were the best. the one on the left is who taught me silkscreening.
really good saxophone
no place is safe from an impromptu moshpit when vegan argentines are around.
and my plans right now are looking like this: hang out here for the rest of july, finish this class on the marques de sade, start going to some free classes that the university of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo offer and try not to freeze. patrick comes the second week of august. i can't wait. and then niki and sean and jess all leave. but i've been hanging out with this new boy named Orlando from Bogota and today i met this girl who studies art and wants to hang out and i'm getting to know the huerta kids more so i won't be totally alone. then in september i take all my final exams and finish up with school here. then erny and me are gonna go to Mendoza and visit Niki and the go to this farm there where i'm planning on staying at least a month. then i guess come back and enjoy spring and summer here and then december 22nd i come home!
back in june it was aneta's bday and me and this old man named mario made 20 pizza doughs and then only about 20 people came to her party and spoke esperanto all night playing with balloons so we have had pizzas coming out of our ears.
i made these ones for sean's birthday last tuesday. which was a really funny party that we had here too and all these people from a hiphop collective here in the city came and freestyled for us all night.
and it snowed! man it was so fun! we ventured out into the cold that night and had a snowball fight with some neighborhood kids and ran around for a couple of hours and i am now really sick but igual it was really special for it to have happened. except for all the homeless people who died and the fact that it's snowing here means climate change is pretty real. everything feels pretty real lately.
and i redid my room and have a place to hang things and an art corner and some more space.
and the huerta! it really sucks and the government has been trying to turn it into a park and bulldoze it. turning a functioning growing community garden into a fenced in "green space" seems pretty ridiculous but I guess its always like that. so we've been having some demonstrations in front of the Jefaturia but mostly just still going and having all sorts of music and food and workshops. sometimes i feel really uncomfortable there not really being part of the scene but also i'm meeting them and still i think its my favorite part of bs as. this was today:
my friend Fede singing made up songs
composting.
Facu and Erny with my bike in the elevator
.and they were the best. the one on the left is who taught me silkscreening.
really good saxophone
no place is safe from an impromptu moshpit when vegan argentines are around.
and my plans right now are looking like this: hang out here for the rest of july, finish this class on the marques de sade, start going to some free classes that the university of the Madres de la Plaza de Mayo offer and try not to freeze. patrick comes the second week of august. i can't wait. and then niki and sean and jess all leave. but i've been hanging out with this new boy named Orlando from Bogota and today i met this girl who studies art and wants to hang out and i'm getting to know the huerta kids more so i won't be totally alone. then in september i take all my final exams and finish up with school here. then erny and me are gonna go to Mendoza and visit Niki and the go to this farm there where i'm planning on staying at least a month. then i guess come back and enjoy spring and summer here and then december 22nd i come home!
9.7.07
2.7.07
23.6.07
also Boca Juniors won the Copa Libertadores on wednesday (which is a pretty big deal if you don't know) everybody went to the obelisco at 2am to celebrate with fireworks and sleeping babies and lots of smiles. it closed down all 312 lanes of avenida 9 de julio with masses of blue and yellow. i don't think i've ever seen that many happy men in my life...drama drama drama in the house. i'm sick of it, you don't even want to know. i need to try to go to sleep before 6am one of these nights. okay, starting now:
10.6.07
1.6.07
look who i brought home today!!!
she's really really tiny! only 800 grams. can that be possible!
she finally fell asleep under the heater listening to nick drake. i think i might join her. there are a lot of other things happening too, here's a really brif update: 1. i gave myself a really bad haircut with bangs. 2. i think i got a job working during the day on weekends more or less as a hostess in a restaurant in san telmo. 3. free silkscreening workshop starts tuesday. 4. i went to a crazy twelve tribes wedding at their community/farm just outside of the city. i'll tell you stories if you ask, there are a lot...
24.5.07
here are some more pictures of the new house: and i finally got heat in my room!
we have about a hundred balconies:
where lots of pies happen:
living:
soon to be my new kitchen:
routines i sometimes forget are important:
the seed fair:
the view from my little window:
and the huerta:
what i like about living here is that it's a real neighborhood. Before i moved i had never even heard of San Cristobal and none of the foreign kids know where it is but lately every porteño i meet actually lives here too. i don't know it's just really little things that sound silly but make me happy to be here. for example yesterday the wheel came off my bike when i was carrying it downstairs so i was standing on the sidewalk trying to put it back on but i didn't have a wrench and an old man sitting in a donkey drawn cart yelled for his friend to come put the wheel on for me and they came over and fixed it and told me i needed air. and a woman was walking by and i wasn't wearing a coat and she yelled at me to put some clothes on and then saw me twenty minutes later and yelled at me again. and the people who work at the fruit stand below our house know who i am and there's an organic food store down the street with grain and granola and dried fruit and spices but it's just run by this ni
ce old couple who sells everything for really cheap because they want everybody to be able to eat healthy. and i found a free silkscreening workshop that meets for classes every tuesday night but i can go use it any night of the week too and they have hundreds of screens with really good images. and they have a bike co-op. and i made friends with this funny vegan boy from mendoza
we have about a hundred balconies:
where lots of pies happen:
living:
soon to be my new kitchen:
routines i sometimes forget are important:
the seed fair:
the view from my little window:
and the huerta:
what i like about living here is that it's a real neighborhood. Before i moved i had never even heard of San Cristobal and none of the foreign kids know where it is but lately every porteño i meet actually lives here too. i don't know it's just really little things that sound silly but make me happy to be here. for example yesterday the wheel came off my bike when i was carrying it downstairs so i was standing on the sidewalk trying to put it back on but i didn't have a wrench and an old man sitting in a donkey drawn cart yelled for his friend to come put the wheel on for me and they came over and fixed it and told me i needed air. and a woman was walking by and i wasn't wearing a coat and she yelled at me to put some clothes on and then saw me twenty minutes later and yelled at me again. and the people who work at the fruit stand below our house know who i am and there's an organic food store down the street with grain and granola and dried fruit and spices but it's just run by this ni
ce old couple who sells everything for really cheap because they want everybody to be able to eat healthy. and i found a free silkscreening workshop that meets for classes every tuesday night but i can go use it any night of the week too and they have hundreds of screens with really good images. and they have a bike co-op. and i made friends with this funny vegan boy from mendoza
20.5.07
yesterday i met up with alyssa, this girl i farmed with in ecaudor who's in bA for a month, and we went to a seed fair in the provincia about an hour away. It was in this giant giant park and i was thinking it'd be cool to be able to talk to people about roof gardening and maybe get some seeds but it turned out it was more of a seed exchange so they weren't really selling stuff. but i started talking to some people from huertas in the province and they were just like, here take what you need and gave me for free a giant bag of seeds that are good to sow in winter/fall. so now i have onions, mint, scallions, beets, carrots, cabbage, lettuce, spinace, acelga, calendula, beans, peas, peanuts, parsley, radishes and a whole bunch of other stuff. and we got a free lunch when we arrived and this lady gave us a big block of cheese that she made yesterday and we got invited to a wedding next saturday! and today there are a whole bunch of workshops like silkscreening, bike fixing, and planting along with art shows and films and music and potluck dinner at this place called la sala. so i am baking an apple carrot cake for that now...
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