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Buenos Aires' Latests Attempts to Tempt Me to Stay

Che, boludos!

It's been a really action-packed week. I explain you now.

I'M GONNA BE ON A REAL LIVE CD!!!

Roommate of friend Brad is an accordion-playing israeli musician composer. He's been working on a record for the last year. And lately on a track called, Take Five Bulgarians, a crazy little version of Brubeck's "Take Five" in a crazy little mixed meter with a weird middle eastern key signature.

So on Thursday, I went to a studio and recorded my bit which will be mixed into the bunch. And it was a lot harder than I thought would be, go figure.

But I've had my first studio recording experience and the best part. It seems that this is a disc that will be sold in stores and everything. So, not having graduated yet or even being a music major, I'm on a real CD.

And come saturday, some friends of distant conntection through my tango teacher invited me to ¨zapar¨with them on saturday in Provincia. For me, provincia means dirt roads, noncity-dwelling, good-spirited Latin American folk. In the past, it has been a welcome relieve from the relentless city and citified denizens of buenos aires. Less arrogance, more acceptance, less money, etc.

Well, this place was not that. It was in a "Country" prounced "CAHntry". Which is short for country club, which is actually a mega gated community where the rich have fled from buenos aires. It is actually remarkably similar to hometown suburb in there, or some nearby. I now look suspiciously at Overland park, etc. Even more suspiciously anyway.

Curiously, the party was held in a house owned by an organization whose sole function is to throw parties in that house. There is a difference between america and argentina. Homeowners associations would never ever allow that house to exist.

Furthermore, the entire appeal of the party was its similarity to American house parties, things that dont really exist in Buenos Aires. According to a guy I talked to, the idea of a bunch of people in a house with alcohol in buckets of ice with a band formed of whoever is an american concept. I might be proud.

In anycase, these people pay 15 pesos to enter the place and there is an open bar (buckets of booze) and everything. Its similarity to parties in the united states is somewhat uncanny. The reality is that I would have never elected to go to such an event in high school which is where parties like this went down. So a few years later, in Buenos Aires, doing some odd frankenstein facsimilie of the same.


Here we are eating outside some place that was eerily similar to the village back home, standard outdoor mall sort of thing.



Not us, but alot like us. Except we had a trombone, and we´re better.


What does zapar mean? In this case, it means show up to a house full of people with musicians you don´t know and make up something on the spot. Francisco, my main man, would say "Funky en D menor" and away we'd go. I think we did a damn good job actually. People really seemed to like it, met some cool musicians, etc.

And the rest of these pictures I need to explain, but I´ve lost interest and I know how happy cora gets when I post, so I´ll leave ´em up to tantalize.




Comments

Have you been noticing me pining away for you on my blog?

come home and stop the pining!
Anonymous said…
Thank You!
I still want part 2.
Also is that pizza they were munching on?
Nathan...at a...party?
strange.

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