Abanico

The first time we went to Niño Bien, it was unbearably hot. In addition our table was covered with an ever-growing pile of flyers for other milongas. Through the haze of humidity, our fevered brains combined the two, and we decided that the way to make our first million in Argentina would be to set up a business printing advertisements for milongas on to chinese fans - we had no use for a pile of flyers, but would have paid for a fan. If the various advertisers were giving them away, we would have taken one, and taken it home (unlike the flyers, which we used for coasters and didn't even read).

Later, I realized that Xmas was just around the corner, and although I could escape Xmas shopping in general (being far away from all the relatives and friends to buy for), really I should buy A something. I wasn't really expecting anything from her (wrong about that, it turns out), but I had sudden flash of inspiration and decided to buy her a nice antique fan for milongas.

I wondered to myself how I might get an opportunity (we're living in each-other's back pockets at the moment), but then she suddenly had a secret mission to accomplish without me, so I took that opportunity to wander in search of an antique shop. It was a matter of minutes, and a short demonstration by pantomime (no knowing the word for 'fan'), before I was perusing a collection of fans, one of which was old and beautiful, and the others were either cheap and nasty or old but dilapidated. The choice was clear. The man in the shop assured me it was wood, handpainted, and from (I think I understood this) the 1930's. $50ARP later, I wasn't sure if I'd been ripped of, but there was the more pressing problem of hiding it from A for the subte ride home.

So for the hour or so before we got home, it was tucked marginally uncomfortably in my sock, while A looked (as usual, in vain) for a new top. She didn't find a top she liked, but what did she buy, for $2 from a street vendor? A fan!

Spanish word for the day: fan = abanico

Bill Murray

The milongas are full of archetypes and caricatures; sometimes it's difficult to believe that the people you're seeing are real and not some strange dream-state characters from a David Lynch film.

There are even couple archetypes; there's the 'leggy stilletoed belle with the wizened old incubus' couple, which I see often and makes me feel like milongas are one of the outer rings of the inferno. And the 'middled aged, going through the motions but nothing bores us more than tango' couple, and the 'man having the intense, passionate, existential union with partner and music, but woman actually can't wait to escape' couple. Each couple is a coin spinning on the dancefloor, and it's both interesting and disturbing to watch the sometimes dissonant facets as they girate by - disturbing because it makes me wonder what kind of coin I make up one side of when I'm dancing.

One night I saw (I swear this is true) a couple dancing who I took, for some reason, to be German tourists. She was a slight woman with a poker face, and he, a tiny tiny fastidious man with a 'claw of death' left hand. They who doing some kind of sandwich-like move, and he stopped, released his right arm from the embrace, and gave her a little admonishing spank on her left buttock. He regained the embrace, and they danced on as if nothing had happened!

The first night we went to Ideal there was a couple who were their own archetype - both short, he had a caved-in looking face and arms like gnarled tree-trunks, she dressed for the bordello with mini skirt to maximise the wide-apertured fishnets. They were always first on the dancefloor, their dancing was the most famboyant on the floor - clearly they are mainstays of Mi Milonga (the Wednesday night Ideal milonga), and we've seen them there since.

We also saw a guy who constantly has a lip-pucker-and-raised-eyebrows expression that makes him look alot like Bill Murray. He was clearly single, and swaggered around the place with a puffed up chest and a cheery demeanor. He didn't bother with the eye-contact thing, shamelessly walking up to random women and asking them loudly out loud "¿Querés bailar?", and being equally shamelessly rejected. Impervious to embarrassment, he would raise his eyes and hands in a dramatic question to the heavens, and swagger to the next lady.

Watching him dance, it became quickly ovious why he disdained eye-contact - otherwise he'd never get dances. He's what K calls a 'rocket man', and clearly disdains other aspects of tango etiquette, like the avoidance of collisions on the dancefloor while he swoops across it with his hapless companion clasped loosely near his front. For her, I guess, this is punishment for being to embarrassed to say "no" out loud. While he dances (sometime in time with the music), he seems to look around to see who can see him, or perhaps he's scoping out hs next victim.

Whenever he was on the prowl anywhere near us, I would tense up on A's behalf, and edge closer to assert my territory - it's amazing what a bit of primate body-language can do; he never asked her, even though he seemed to have a taste for foreign blood.

I've seen him several times at Ideal, and again last night at Glorieta - an outdoor milonga we tried in Belgrano (in the North of the city). This time, in my absence, he asked A for a dance. Fortunately I was close by and she could pretend I'd already just asked her.

The more I watch him swaggering about with implacable cheeriness, desperately scanning the ranks of women on the perimeter, the more it seems like a determined facade to me; I wonder why he puts himself through this desperately amiable and bold act. I pictured him being the last person to leave the milonga, going home to a tiny, empty, dilapidated apartment, the facade slipping to the floor and the chronic loneliness rising to the surface, left only with the scents of twenty perfumes and the memory of forty rejections and truncated tandas. Is this character one of the exemplars of CD's theory that the dance appeals only to lonely hearts, who live alone and use tango to fulfil the need for physical human intimacy that's unsatisfied by their 'other' life?

Or maybe this tragi-romantic picture I've dreamed up is false. Maybe 'Bill Murray' is some corporate The Office manager type, convinced of his own charm and skill, and these frequent tango excursions are an extension of his ego, philanthropically blessing desperate foreign ladies with the indubitable pleasure of his company and guidance.

I'll probably (hopefully?) never know the truth. But 'Bill Murray' is an instance of another milonga archetype. Canning (in Palermo Soho, not as far North as Glorieta, Darío Rodríguez is the organiser on Sunday night), where possibly 'Bill Murray' wouldn't dare show his face, there's another, less obnoxious instance of this stereotype. He's another middle-aged man who's clearly installed himself at this milonga and swaggers about as if he owns the place. But instead of making a nuisance of himself to the ladies by dancing, paces up and down the bar and sings along effusively to all of the tangos.

La Confiteria Ideal

Confiteria Ideal was the first place we went to dance. It's exactly as it appears in video - grandiose and dilapidated. The night we first went there J's orchestra was playing, so it was the first (and only so far) chance to dance to live music here.

After we'd danced a couple of tandas, and Argentine came up and went on about how beautiful our dancing was, how we really understood tango, where did we come from, who was our teacher, etc. I was flattered, but A told me not to get an ego about it, which I was pretty deflated about - our first milonga, strangers in a strange land and not sure of ourselves (or at least me not sure of myself) - I could do with any ego boost I could get!

But it was true that it wasn't difficult to stand out - there seems to be lots of 'look at me' dancing there. It's also where we've seen tourists in the greatest numbers (which is not necessarily a bad thing - I've found it easier to get dances with tourists than with locals).

One night we went there to see Carlos Gavito and Maria Plazaola dance, which was beatiful (although it was also exactly the same dance to exactly the same music that I've seen on two videos). Gavito appeared to be very revered by many of the people there, and I still can't shake the impression that he's a dirty old man. A and I had a fight that night because she thought I was eyeing up a young dancer who'd done a performance earlier in the evening. It's true that she was cute, but also clearly tied up in the 'fame' of dancing at Ideal - she spent all night standing up at her table, looking around to see who could see her. It was the first time A has ever been jealous at a milonga; BAires will do strange things to you...

We also went to a class there during the day - turned out to be Diego who we'd met at the Melbourne tango festival. A very friendly man with a calm, non-invasive approach to teaching - he doesn't tell you what to do, he suggests what you might like to try. Seeing as I've got such a problem with authority, this works very well for me. His English is excellent too, which makes the class less hard work for me. Might go to more of his classes, until I feel a bit more comfortable about the language. A wants to go to everything every day, but I can't quite cope with that.

Anyway, I think perhaps Ideal is the tango-tourist Mecca here - you won't see the best dancing, but it has an aged elegance about it...

Adornos Navidades

Xmas isn't as commercial here as in NZ, which is refreshing.

But they have little kiosks here with five or six phone booths - I saw one the other day that listed as its attractions not only Unbeatable Prices!, but Christmas Decorations! in the booths.

Salón Canning

From that heart of entropy, La Viruta, back to our orderly friend, Salón Canning, where as A pointed out, every couple seemed to have just the right amount of space around them, and not a collision in sight.

The address of Salón Canning is 'Scalabrini Ortiz 1331' - and two out of three times we've caught a taxi there, when we say the address, the taxi driver exclaims "Ah, capicúa". When I asked our intercambio idioma friend about why palindromes would be so important to taxi drivers (one pointed out that Menem was like this too), she explained that people here (older people than herself, she thought) are very superstitious (cábala), and so anything like that was good luck.

Spanish word for the day: reversible = capicúa

Anyway, Salón Canning was the milonga where J suggested we first meet, and we met him there again last night. We've been there one other night, to try out a class there.

I hated the class. The teacher was patronising, and taught in figures, breaking the class into halves to show the men and women seperately. A and I both dislike this kind of teaching - it's not instructive to do something without your partner; you just have to learn to do it again, with them. But more importantly, the ladies memorize this figure, so they don't follow the man's lead, and the man doesn't need to lead properly, because the lady's doing it anyway. Also, frankly, I'm dubious about learning form a woman. This is not sexism; I doubt that she ever leads anybody in a milonga (it's just not here, as far as I can see), so how can she teach me something I can use?

Anyway, I also hated it because there are too many people in the class for there to be enough room to actually do the figure, and people didn't seem very forgiving about the inevitable collisions that occurred.

But the real reason I hated it, I reluctantly confess, is that my dancing was shit. With suddenly alot of things to think about, I couldn't lead my way out of a paper bag. I changed partners several times, and I was always the lady's last choice, preferable only to sitting out. Some of them were gracious about my ineptitude, but by the end of the class I was wholly sick of being the stupid gringo who couldn't dance and couldn't speak Spanish either.

The class rolled into the milonga. With a minor adventure making myself misunderstood at the bar, my mal humor was spiralling. I left to have dinner (and a sulk), leaving A to have some dances that I think she been sorely hankering for, without interference from me, her glowering compadre.

After some stern pulling-of-myself-together, and some pizza, I returned to Canning but it was no good, I just didn't feel like dancing. I might have snivelled a little. Maybe.

Anyway, the last time we were there, with J, he talked about the music a little. Conversation with him is always a bit stop-start, but I'd like to learn a way in, because apart from being actually very helpful, he's got a few interesting facts about the music that I think are worth knowing - for example, he was pointing out a part of the music (a tango I know fairly well, although the name escapes me right now...) where change from 4-time to a 3-3-2 beat. I know I've heard it and liked the feel, but I'd never realized it was a time-signature change. I don't know exactly what I'll do with this little tidbit - but I'm sure I'll figure out something one day.

One day, hopefully soon, I'll pluck up the courage to ask J how to go about learning to play the bandoneón. Hopefully...

La Viruta

La Viruta is a milonga that J recommended we not go to, so it was with some curiosity that we arrived at Centro Armenio to investigate. At first, I thought we were in the wrong place at the wrong time; we got to the bottom of the stairs, to the entrance, to find it was the backstage area of a seriously dramatic looking play. We stood in the darkness and watched from the wings, while it appeared to reach its climax, the blackout came, and there were the curtain calls. Then it seemed to me that the entire audience left up the stairs we'd just come down.

I had suggested to A that we sneak away and go somewhere else, but she had the courage to ask the coat-check lady if there was a milonga here, and it turned out that there was, and that it was free entry. So we entered the subterranian room, which turned out to be alot bigger than I thought it was, and lo, there was a milonga just starting up.

We had arrived so late that there was, of course, nowhere to sit. I guess because it's a free milonga, there was nobody to direct us to a table, so we stood at the bar drinking beer and taking it all in.

We could see why it would offend J's orderly sensibilities - the place was full of young people (and some older people too), most of the guys, and some of the girls, were wearing sneakers, and the dress standard was certainly casual. We were still trying to spot a free table, but it was impossible because, although there were many with nobody sitting, the occupants may have been dancing, and because there were no cortinas during wich everybody returned to their table, we just had to watch the occupied tables until we saw somebody leave.

The music was pretty good, I thought. The dancefloor was chaos! There was a little movement in the line of dance, but there was alot of crazy stuff going on, with huge sweeping moves and changes in direction. There was practicing off the dancefloor - two women together, which I haven't seen anywhere else.

A thought that it was like a cross between a milonga and a student pub.

Then suddenly it was rock-n-roll music, the dancefloor cleared (for the first time) and was quickly refilled by exuberant rock-n-rollers. A thought it looked like fun, and we thought maybe after travelling all this way, maybe we'd give up tango to take up rock-n-roll (then maybe go to North America to take up Viennese Waltz, then perhaps Europe to learn Irish dancing...). He rock-n-roll lasted a long time, but finally there was tango again, some Biagi that got us wanting to try the dancefloor.

Unfortunately, by the time we got our bags checked in to the coat-check (heeding ubiquitous notices about the management taking no responsibility if your stuff got stolen from your table), the music was some kind of Piazzolla or something equally undanceable, and it stayed like that for a long time. With no discernable beat, people seemed to be ignoring the music and practicing all of their wackiest moves. And with not discernable line of dance (and an ice-rink floor) I was quickly hating every minute of it. After about four of the same, we gave up. The coat-check was almost closing, so we made ourselves scarce.

I was left with the impression that La Viruta was the wild jungle of milongas - you had to take your chances - it might be great or terrible, and you couldn't rely on anything but your own wits. In the right mood, probably this is exhilirating. But not for the faint-of-heart.

After a fortnight

Well, it's very strange - it seems like an age that we've been here (ChCh seems so far away!), and yet it only feels like moments since we arrived. I'm sure that in two and a half weeks we should have

1. been to every milonga
2. tried out different teachers and picked some that suit us
3. learnt the most fashionable new moves
4. bought three pairs of news shoes each
5. booked a tango show to come back to ChCh with us

Alas! There seems to have been a time vortex, or maybe we were abducted by aliens on the plane; we've ticked off none of the above listed items. We're so crap!

Although in A's defence, she is two-thirds of the way to her three pairs of new shoes. For my own part, I have bought a pair, but they're not even dancing shoes!

But feeling stunned and overwhelmed (and I'm feeling rather confused, coz I never know quite what's going on - must really learn some more spanish (I have been watching the Simpsons in spanish; that's gotta help)).

We've been to a few milongas, but are still recoiling a little from early bad experience - one of the first nights we went out, the first milonga was clearly for those Porteños who are both retired and single. It was more like Bingo night than Tango night.

I was happy to watch the dancing - they all danced with the 'milonguero' rhythm that P taught when she came to ChCh. Unfortunately A felt like we were wearing a neon sign that said "tourists who don't know what they're doing". Admittedly, during the one tanda we danced, every eye I happened to glance at was looking straight back at me. So we beat a hasty retreat and tried another milonga. Unfortunately, the floor was at about 120% capacity and I was just starting to slip into a strange delirium that turned out to be sunstroke, which smote me down for about four days. That'll teach me for getting up on 2 hours' sleep and walking around in the sun all day.

We've met J at another milonga, and he's been full of handy tips. But so far nobody's been interested in dancing with either of us, which is a relief to me, until I get some crowded-dancefloor skills, but A's getting a bit sick of it, so we've decided we need to find some tango-buddies, so that A doesn't have to sit at a table by herself to get asked to dance (she can sit with her lady tango friend), and we can get the low-down on classes, milongas, etc.

From what I've seen in the milonga's so far, you see some nice stuff, but all of the worst dancing I've seen anywhere happens here too, and worse. Just about everybody is back-stepping, people are trying out their big sweepy moves. Basically for me it's the same as anywhere, you quickly learn who's your friend and who's your enemy on the dancefloor. The difference is that in NZ, I always had one tango enemy on the dancefloor. In Baires, there are five or six, and half as much room to escape.

Outfits vary quite alot too, from cargo pants and sandals to skimpy sparkly little dresses. There seems to be a thing at the moment for thin white pants and really dark underwear (?!).

Other than tango, we've done a bit of trudging around the city, gaping at grandiose architecture, trying to figure out how to eat (it's difficult to buy anything other than steak and chips here), where to eat (in one confiteria, we accidentally sat in the dessert section of the restaurant - spot the ignorant foreigners!), when to eat, how to speak (got a looong way to go on that), how to travel hither and thither - I quite like the rustic underground system they've got here - wooden carriages with open windows, 70 centavos a ride. It gives Antoinette the shits.

Unfortunately taxis give us both the shits - while they do paint lines on the road, the real lanes seem to be the subject of constant personal negotiation between drivers, who communicate with each other with a complicated system of horn toots, light flashes, eye contact, and the occasional sign of the cross. Buses we may try one day, when we're both feeling alert and courageous.

Anyway tonight we're trying another milonga - La Viruta - J particularly recommended that we don't go to this one, so it should be interesting. We've finally got our hands on BA Tango and another tango magazine (el tangauta), so we're getting to grips with what's coming up - there are some milongas with Color Tango playing, Los Hermanos Macana dancing (the two guys who dance together), and Gavito - A wants to go to workshops with him, but I'm not so sure - he looks like a dirty old man to me.

San Telmo market

We visited the San Telmo antique market this afternoon.

A couple of years ago, spending an afternoon meandering Christchurch, I promised myself to one day live in a city that actually cared about its own architecture. I had in mind somewhere in Europe, but it turns out that BAires cares (or did at one stage). San Telmo is fabulous - walking there from town, you go though a district full of building erected by the Jesuits in the 18th C. Some are very run down, with plants (trees!) growing through the widening cracks from the inside. Others have been restored, or are in the process. One edificio (the english word building doesn't quite manage to connote these) is covered in convincing scaffolding, which is mildly surprising; elsewhere in BAires, the attitude to scaffolding seems to be that it's an necessary evil, to be applied as sparingly as possible.

The street market was full of tourist wares and attractions; the mandatory tango dancers with the crappiest sound system I've ever heard, the cervecaria with a poker-faced guitarist and two old codgers haranguing the patrons and singing tangos in a sentimental fashion, a wizened crone dressed in a very short skirt and fishnets, who was tottering up and down in some kind of delirium, with the sole apparent purpose of making babies cry.

But there were genuine antique stores and stalls (SS would be beside himself in this place) - full to the brim with deco lamps, sword-sticks, pictures of Evita, fans, old Borges publications, and dust.

You couldn't see the dust, but by the time we were halfway around the outside of the ring of stalls (which became circles of hell for me before we'd finished the inner ring), hayfever had converted me into a sneezing automaton. I felt sorry for A, being pursued relentlessly by a pulse of phlegmy explosions, and after not too much more browsing, absented myself to a cafe just outside the district (abrupt cessation of sneezing achieved, all that remained was to deal with a faceful of snot).

Spanish word for the day: tissue=pañuelo de papel