Analect 2.555x

17 August 2009. Mid-afternoon, flash of Oceanside on a summer's day. Salt breeze, warm sand, glittery sea. Endless wind-tossed waves, rolling endlessly in... Pepe (now this a long time back)--mop of blond hair, surfer's build, leaning forward over worn guitar--the narrow Spanish wood a pathway to other places, other times.

Infallible, maybe--like the palm-fronds plaited into beach hats--tropical isle--or blocks of whitish parrafin scraped across width of polyurethane board, peppery rick-rack for a better grip. Yes, power of the toes, turning left off the face of smooth green wave--five feet and glassy--powered higher and higher by some current unknown...

Analect.2 554x

14 August 2009. Late summer, cool morning. Pool girl in ski cap girl slides open office window, smiling. Three swimmers, under water, chests up, fins, dolphin surge...

Insistent and unexpected... A milonga campera, played en homenaje... Family photos in faded black and white--a little girl and her father together on a bike, she sits just in front, between his arms. Group of figures in front of a truck, leaning back on the hood, arms akimbo, their sons piled on just behind. A trio of men, standing straight, before heavy burlap bags of Argentine wheat, stacked high over their heads...

"...a vos Viejo, que hace 7 años te fuiste para el silencio, pero tus consejos son palabras que orientan mi vida a cada día. Te mando esta canción que siempre cantabas y tocabas tan lindo, 'Gracias Benjamín Buisi por haber sido mi Papá.' "

* * *

"...to you, Viejo (old man, always said with a combination of respect, endearment and just a touch of the younger man's need to challenge) it's now 7 years since you left for the Silence, but each day your words of advice continue to orient my life. I send you this song, the one that you used to sing and play so nicely. 'Thank you Benjamin Buisi for having been my father.' "

Analect 2.553x

13 August 2009. Golden sky, cool blue green pool. Lithe figure next door, tiny red toes...

Atilio Reynoso--a triunfo (my transcription in progress):

Mi caballo atado
alla relinchando, 'lla relinchando
Dejelo que relinche
yo estoy cansando, yo estoy cansando...

Este es el triunfo, triunfo
de las mujeres, de las mujeres
Que bonito lo vayan
cuando ellas quieren, cuando ellas quieren...

Una gallina vaya
y un gallo vero
Son las primeras etapas
de un pueblo nuevo...

Este es el triunfo, triunfo
cantar de mi alma, cantar de mi alma
Hacia más dulce la muerte
que la vida amarga...

* * *

My horse is tied up
neighing and neighing
So let him neigh,
I'm resting...

This the triunfo, the triunfo
about all women, about the women
How nicely it goes
when they wish it, when they wish it...

A chicken makes her way
and a real rooster
They're the first steps
towards a new pueblo...

This is a triunfo, a triunfo
the song of my soul, the song of my soul
where death becomes more sweet
than this bitter life...

Analect 2.552x

12 August 2009. Sunny, maybe warm. Broken clouds, shimmering pool...

Alfredo Zitarrosa... El chogüí--celestino común--the sayaca tanager, from the litoral... los ríos del Uruguay...

"Habita generalmente los matorrales, muy rara vez están en el piso. El nido lo construyen con mucha prolijidad en las ramas más altas de los árboles, con palitos entrelazados y hojitas secas. La parte interna tiene líquenes y pastos finos recubiertos de musgos. Se los encuentra en parejas o pequeñas bandadas. Al comienzo de la primavera se juntan con las otras aves que migran."

Al compadre Juan Miguel
no le pagan el jornal,
y aunque no haiga de comer
lo mesmo, hay que trabajar
Pobre compadre Juan Miguel
la vida le ha toca'o...

(from the beginning of a chamarrita--Coplas al compadre Juan Miguel)
* * *
(Inhabits brushland primarily, very rarely seen on the ground. They construct their nests with great elaboration in the highest branches of the trees, made with interlaced twigs and dry leaves. The interiors have lichens and fine grasses covered with moss. Encountered in pairs or small flocks. At the beginning of spring they join together with other migratory birds...)

To my compadre Juan Miguel
they don't pay him his daily wage,
and even though there's nothing to eat
all the same, you have to work
To my compadre Juan Miguel
Life has given him a knock...

Analect 2.551x

11 August 2009. Gray skies, even all across...

Coplas de carnaval--Tilcara, Salta, in the far northwest of Argentina. Verses at the time of Carnaval. A woman's voice, chanting. Steady beating of a drum...

Solita soy en el mundo
solita como el cardón
de noche me da la luna
media' me pega el sol...

El carnaval es un río
y andamos mojando la vida
los que seguimos creyendo
que la tristeza se olvida...

La naranja nació verde
el tiempo la maduró...
mi corazón nació libre
y el tuyo lo cautivó...

Las sabanas de mi cama
toda la noche las lavo
con lagrimas de mis ojos
al ver que me has olvidado...

Si me querés dímelo
y si no, dame veneno
que yo prefiero la muerte
que verte en brazos ajenos...

La pena y la que no pena
toda es pena para mi
Ayer penaba por verte
hoy pena' te vi...

* * *

I am all alone in the world
all alone like a cactus plant
in the night, lit by the moon
in the day, beaten by the sun...

Carnaval is like a river
we go along, getting our lives wet
those of us who continue believing
that sorrow can be forgotten...

The orange was born green
time made her ripe
my heart was born free
and yours made her a captive...

The sheets of my bed
all night long I soak them
with the tears from my eyes
on seeing that you have forgotten me...

If you do love me, tell me so
and if not, then give me poison
for I prefer death
to seeing you in the arms of another...

Pain and even the which isn't pain
all is pain for me
yesterday, I was paining to see you
and today, pained that I did...

Analect 2.550x

10 August 2009. Sun, warm day. Blue green pool, churners...

Piedra y camino--Atahualp Yupanqui. Born Héctor Roberto Chavero, in Pergamino, a railway town on the open plains of the Provincia de Buenos Aires... His father had lived as a gaucho, but took a job with the railroad for the security of his new family; they moved often from stationhouse to stationhouse, across the llanura...

"Mi padre era poco amigo de explicaciones. Pienso que tal vez prefería enfrentarse al paisaje, a los hombres, a las cosas que pueden ayudar a entender la vida, para que poco a poco yo sacara mis propias conclusiones. Tenía, sí, el buen tacto de no ofrecerme espectáculos. Muchas veces, con una mirada o una palabra, me ordenaba alejarme de gentes que él no consideraba oportunas o dignas para mis ojos... Me cuidaba sin que yo me percatara. Jamás tuve mejor baquiano que mi padre, en la pampa y en la vida." (El canto del viento)

* * *

(My father was little friend of explanations. I think that he preferred to confront the landscape, people, the things that help one understand life, in order that little by little I might draw my own conclusions. Yes, he had the good tact not to show me vulgaritiers. Many the time, with a glance or a word, he would order me to distance myself from the types that he didn't consider worthwhile or dignified enough for my eyes... He looked out for me without my noticing. I never had a better guide than my father, on the pampa or in life...)

(The Song of the Wind)

Analect 2.549x

7 August 2009. Linda mañana. Open skies to the east, shimmering gold on blue.

An older woman with aluminum cane just to my side in the coffee line, reaches across my wrist to a box filled with bright crimson foil-wrapped chocolates. I approve of her choice. Then she, in a soft and very British English: "I'm not supposed to. I'm diabetic, you know. But I'll die happy..." Again reaching, to almost touch my arm...

"...where the pleasures are few." Lines from a song--Merle Travis, at night, in his car somewhere in LA, sitting under a streetlamp, lady friend alongside--scribbling out the lines to a song...

Or the Argentine, father and daughter together on a stage. His enveloping presence--her wonderfully almost-innocent confidence. To make a place for this in the world...

Analect 2.548x

6 August 2009. Pearl clouds across the sky, opening onto blue-green pool...

Three figures, compañeros... los árboles de la provincia de Santa Fé...

Orlando Vera Cruz...singing the words to a poem...

Y mi amigo es el hombre entre los hombres.
Él y la rosa son lo mismo;
él y la hierba cuando vuelve,
a pesar del cuchillo...

* * *

And my friend is a man among men.
He and the rose are the same;
he and the grass when it returns,
the grass despite the blade that cuts...

(from the poem Cárcel, by José Pedroni)

Analect 2.547x

Pulling out of 7-eleven--latino tradesman in polished black double-cab open-backed truck, the one with the braided silver trim--muy elegante--gives a wave through tinted glass. Glimpse of wide smile, fleeting...

Atilio Reynoso--always a kind of return. Again, un estilo viejo, played in open sixths, the melody shifting from above to below, and back again. But what do I know of this--a sound discovered, really. Happened upon. Fields of grass--all the words--pajonal, gramilla, pastillo--yuyos, cardón-- carrizo de las pampas...

El viento estremece...

The music as well...

* * *

(El viento estremece... The wind makes tremble...)

Analect2.546x

4 August 2009. Almost sun, gray and blue. Smiling woman in pool, arc of even teeth in an ancient Chinese face. Continuities...

Coya, people of the far northwest, spread of Inca lands up and down the Andean chain, including the Argentine provinces of Salta, Jujuy, Tucumán. Face of Garcilaso de la Vega--El Inca Garcilaso--his narrow, arched Castilian nose, high forehead, pointed features--that single slice of white collar above the Spanish black... His mother an Inca princess...

Or Santiago del Estero, where a dignified older woman stands before a microphone with caja drum, her hair a gray blond, preparing to sing. Outdoors, sound of people's voices, unseen, children too. A call of encouragement from someone in the crowd: "Bravo, bravo Bajia..." Aware of all this, yet very much in her own realm. A time of song, a lifetime...

Una vidala...

Analects 2.545x

2 August 2009. Autumn approaching. Yesterday--dear Gabryela's birthday, Warszawa. Pierwszy Sierpien´--day of the powstanie, the Warsaw Uprising, from a quarter of a century before.

As with the palm--a rebirth. Rosita Quiroga, seated against a backdrop of empty wooden chairs--Thonet, Loos, Mitteleuropa... but here it's Puente Alsina, and the old Buenos Aires--Riachuelo, La Boca... "Donde está mi barrio--mi cuna querida...?"

"...nuestros vecinos eran los Quinquela Martín. Cantaba milongas, estilos, zambas, vidalas... Después me incliné al tango--pero el tango arrebalero..." "Y quantos años tiene?" "Pero ché, me estas embromando... Soy tan vieja como la biblia... Pero si, puedo cantar este tango..."

Pensamientos insoslayabales...


* * *

"My neighborhood--where is it--my cradle, the one I love...?"

"Our neighbors were the family of (painter) Quinquela Martín. I was singing milongas, estilos, zambas, vidalas. Afterwards I was drawn to the tango--but the tango arrebalera (tango of the outer districts, the rough periphery). "And how old are you now?" "but che, you're joking with me. I'm as old as the Bible... But yes, I can still sing this tango..."

Thoughts, unavoidable...

Analect 2.544x

30 July 2009. Quiet Friday pool, out and return. All gray. Sleek figure, midstream, several feet below, saving the dolphins...

Alfredo Zitarrosa. Who would have thought. A hundred faces, each more haunting than the last. Bien gominado--the polished hair--but something alive within, mysterious, very near the surface, but always hidden, even painfully, as if the revelation were never to be part of the deal. Watching him, we feel the same...

Una voz ensimismada--this for us as well...

* * *

Ensimismarse=from en sí mismo, a reflexive act of the awareness of the presence of the self--and at the same moment, the world.  Velázquez, Cristo...

Por que hay tanto campo, vidalitá
y tanta gente pobre...

(For there is so much country land, vidalitá
and so many people poor...)

(for Mauricio)

Analect 2.543x

29 July 2009. Gray skies, lovely, even gray skies.

Yesterday--a vidalitá, recorded by Leda y María, half a century ago. Entre valles y quebradas--Between Valleys and Ravines... (The recording they made together, remembered from that time, now returned.) Or the yaraví, una canción del viejo Perú, making its way through those same passes. El Cisne, the swan. "Del cancionero anónimo..."

Traces of colonial Spain, leached into the American earth--el yacimiento... A young girl from Arequipa, this history, relived.

Analect 2.542x

28 July 2009. Gray morning, hints of sun to the south, then gone. Puffy truck across the street--also gray--with achingly luminous tail light housings, tinted glass. Labor's revisionists.

As with Eva Perón--who's words stand out as a kind of heroic madness--engaging the emotions, always, but finally, towards what end? ("Yo quiero la selva y la incógnita...") And yet, her face...

Abel Fleury, Estilo pampeana--song of the llanura--the open plains.

Botas de potro...

* * *

(Note: Eva Perón-- "I love the jungle, and the unknown..."
Botas de potro: leggings made directly from horsehide, partially covering the foot .)

Analect 2.541x

27 July 2009. Even and gray, breeze.

White ACR truck--Air Conditioning and Refrigeration Corporation in small red letters across tail. Man appears--red shirt, dark arms, swings open back to remove two long white replacement panels, carrying them jauntily across 7-eleven lot. 1-888-345-COLD. Next to him: hint of charging red bull on violent yellow--emerging from gray over blue--American drug. Continuing, gleaming Toyota van, also in white, with narrow black rails on top--purpose unclear. Parked and waiting...

As opposed to Che G, "sobre el burro"--sometime in 1933, Alta Gracia, Córdoba, la Argentina...

26 July 2009. Again gray, promising sun...

The poems of Romildo Risso, poeta gauchesco uruguayo... "y tomando quizá la forma contemplativa del hombre de campo," a phrase from the introduction by Claudio Frydman: "And taking on perhaps the contemplative form of the man of the countryside..."


Silbando piensan las aves.

Silbando piensan las aves
Yo pienso ansina también.
Naides sabe lo que dicen,
Ellas lo deben saber.
Se me hace que las ideas
Con las palabras se van.
En el sibido parece
que se alargan nada más.
Mesmo sin pensar en nada
Las horas suelo silbar...

Romildo Risso

* * *

Birds Think by Whistling

Birds think by whistling
That's how I think as well.
Nobody knows what they're saying,
but they must know.
Sometimes it happens with me
that ideas in words just go away.
By whistling it seems
they simply get a little longer.
And so in not thinking about anything
I find myself whistling the hours...

Romildo Risso (1882-1946)

Analect 2.539x

24 July 2009. Gray, with flecks of rain. Gray pool, cold.

Tata Cedrón, singing to a group of friends, in Buenos Aires... The poems of Hómero Manzi--


El Ultimo Organito

Las ruedas embarradas del último organito
vendrán desde la tarde buscando el arrabal,
con un caballo flaco y un rengo y un monito
y un coro de muchachas vestidas de percal.

Con pasos apagados elegirá la esquina
donde se mezclan luces de luna y almacén
para que bailen valses detrás de la hornacina
la pálida marquesa y el pálido marqués.

El último organito irá de puerta en puerta
hasta encontrar la casa de la vecina muerta,
de la vecina aquella que se cansó de amar;
y allí molerá tangos para que llore el ciego,
el ciego inconsolable del verso de Carriego,
que fuma, fuma y fuma sentado en el umbral.

Tendrá una caja blanca el último organito
y el asma del otoño sacudirá su son,
y adornarán sus tablas cabezas de angelitos
y el eco de su piano será como un adiós.

Saludarán su ausencia las novias encerradas
abriendo las persianas detrás de su canción,
y el último organito se perderá en la nada
y el alma del suburbio se quedará sin voz.

Hómero Manzi

* * *

The Last Organ Grinder

The muddy wheels of the cart of the last street organ player
will emerge from the late afternoon searching for the arrabal,
with a skinny horse, a lame one, and a little monkey
and a chorus of young girls dressed in percale.

With muted steps he'll choose his corner
where the light of the moon mixes with that of the corner store
in order that they dance waltzes just within the alcove
the pale marquesa and the pale marquis.

The last street organ player will go from door to door
until he encounters the house of the neighbor, now dead,
the house of that same woman who grew tired of love;
and there he will grind out tangos, until the blind man weeps
the inconsolable blind man from that poem of Carriego,
who smokes and smokes and smokes, sitting there in the darkened doorway.

He will have a white music box, the last street organ player
and the asthma of autumn will run through his sound,
and the heads of tiny angels will adorn its sides
and the echo of its piano will be as a farewell.

The awaiting brides, enclosed in their houses, will greet his absence
opening the Persian blinds just behind his song,
and the last organ player will be lost in nothingness
and the soul of neighborhood will be left without a voice.

Hómero Manzi

Analect 2.538x

23 July 2009. Chill wind, ghost ripples on pool. Empty lanes at dawn. En route home--the old pool--building now a pile of rubble, two iron-jaw machines scooping up chunks of concrete, dumping them without ceremony into dented bin of waiting semi, diesel running...

La Siete de Abril de Andrés Chazarreta...from a different time. Image on screen--a young man, posture forthright, seated at table, pavo y mate al lado, "tratando de tocar"--una frase gauchesca, or is that so? A certain dignified modesty, in any case--viejo estilo criollo--although he's certainly too young, and the striped pullover reveals a much more recent age. Heavy sliding bolt on door, locking from the inside...

Otros andarán por ahí
igualitos como yo
cantando tristes sus penas
zamba sos mi canción...

* * *

Others will follow along
just as I do
singing with sadness their sorrows
zamba, you are my own song...

(Note: The adjective, gauchesco, describes an act of selfless--and often risky--generosity. Viejo estilo criollo--the old argentine criollo ways. For example, story of poet, Juan L. Ortiz, that he always addressed his young son not as tu, but rather in the second person formal, usted. Viejo estilo criollo. The boy would answer him using tu...)

Analect 2.536x

21 July 2009. Nicola curled up half on my shoulder, motor purr, sometime in the vicinity of 1am... But who's counting, with Polo Gimenez's charming accounts of Buenos Aires in the 1950s running through my head. El Tinetense, for example, small club hidden behind an old brick wall--una vieja tapia de ladrillo--where one knocks at the unobtrusive inset doorway--no sign, of course, and just inside a run of grand shade trees along path to sloping structure with unplastered walls--sin revocar--

Este insospecho rinconcito de Buenos Aires, resulta un pintoresco, alegre y airado lugar, donde puede reunirse un grupo de amigos a comer un sabroso asado al aire libre, bajo los árboles, gozando de intimidad y tranquilidad absolutas...

Taking for granted--or perhaps making possible--that we all share something of this life...

* * *

(This unsuspected little corner of Buenos Aires turns out to be a picturesque, cheerful and airy place, where one can come together with a group of friends to eat a tasty asado in the open air, under the trees, taking pleasure in the intimacy and absolute tranquility... Polo Gimenez, Este lado del recuerdo.)

Analect 2.535x

20 July 2009. Gray dawn. Natasha eager to come in, Nicola eager to go out. There we have it--the tides, the seasons, the three-minute egg.

Playing songs in morning light. Corrazones Amantes. And Nostalgias Santiagueñas, from Adolfo Abalos--ripply arpeggio against a solid but understated strum. Never emphasize the first beat, he writes--and then does so precisely. Tides and seasons.

Story from Polo Giménez, in Este Lado del Recuerdo (This Side of Memory)--always with a certain lively drollness, mixed with the most unabashed emotions--for the songs, the land (Paisaje de Catamarca), for his mother (Del tiempo i'mama)...and of course for all of his friends...

Hotel du Midi, que vive todavía...


* * *

(The pianist here is Ariel Ramírez, noted composer of Misa Criolla, and an admired friend of Polo Giménez. Polo's own recordings seem to be available only on record. In the second video, we have an impromtu dining room duo with Marco Cardenas y Galo Jurado--fresh from YouTube. The drawing shows Polo Giménez, with Jorge Cafrune alongside...)

Analect 2.534x

17 July 2009. Dappled sun, tiny breeze. Natasha appearing suddenly in the shadows, after long night out, sitting quizically, gold-green eyes...

Rodolfo María Giménez--"Polo"... "Los Musiqueros y... del tiempo i'ñaupa...". His piano, his books, paintings, leaning back in a relaxed way on the well-worn couch--an urbane touch--played tangoes in Córdoba from day one--and yet, and yet his love for la música folklórica--Catamarca, La Cuesta del Portezuelo...

Analect 2.533x

16 July 2009. Gray morning, chill. Pool water gray, too. Untoward...

Older woman with yellow bags, a pile of them, stacked on metal roller cart. Her narrow eyes veiled by wide-wing dark glasses, moving mouth, soft features, but ready to pounce. "You're crazy," she announces, accusing me under her breath...

Story of Levinas and the shoe store in Vienna, which he visited, children in tow--but the pair he tried on somehow just weren't right. Nevertheless, a great inner struggle as to whether he weren't indeed obligated to purchase them, the clerk having made such an effort.

Effort and grace. The island of Chiloé, somewhere south, off the Chilean coast. Dancers in narrow room, hurricane lamp, heavy clothes. Smiling. Refalosa y zamba, Cueca chilote también...

Analect 2.532x

15 July 2009. Window seat, mid-morning, cool gray skies. Mysterious dark haired girl, bare feet tucked up under her knees, working on an elaborate report--many separate boxes to be filled in. Alacritous typing...

Neighbors next door. Voices through the holly leaves, grown thick over rickety fence--laughter and short exclamations, group of young people--a nice abruptness... Glow of single cigarette in the evening dark...

Also, this morning--young guy with band flyer--his own. Black and white. "I play guitar." Gives me a quick history of the Stooges--their four albums, "each one different, each one perfect," rounding his thumb and first finger into a mathematician's "O"...

The Impediments, sans serif plus tantric hand with question mark, Weegie photo of dissolute middle-agers... and some scraggly writing as to time and place... Also appealing...

"Nice name."

Analect 2.531x

14 July 2009. Push of light at dawn, warm day in the offing...

Lechuza--the owl. Sheet of yellow trace, with blunt markings on straight lines--plan and section for owl boat, as before... Invisible architect of the night, bane of mouse and mole--whose subtle and prominent mournfulness greets us from the cedar tree...

Lechuza--the owl.

Analect 2.530x

13 July 2009. Sunny window, Norris and Charles at work--backs and forths, notes on the day... Impromptu analytique of Dorris Day, Judy Garland, Greg providing the requisite youtube standoff. Bit of film track--sound of an entire era--an eager and somewhat complacent optimism... Reassuring as well, the sound of mild tears...violins...

Dusty road somewhere in the northeast corner of Santiago del Estero. Monte Quemado--the burned mountain. El Hachero, figure of a woodcutter, an over-sized eulogy in roughly-formed concrete, scarf and sash of a campesino, sideburns and brow overdrawn. Clearest feature--veins on the arms as he grasps the axe. Los brazos...

Yesterday: Nostalgias cuyanas. Corazones Amantes, a zamba, recorded by Ruiz Gallo and Perez Cardozo...

Yo te quiero morena
con alma y vida, con alma y vida
solo con tus caricias
podré curar mi alma herida

* * *

I love thee, my dark one
with my soul and my life, my soul and life
only your caresses
will heal my wounded spirit

Analect 2.529x

10 July 2009. Nice gray morning, sun sometime soon... Paying altogether too much attention to John's small green car--an English racing green (and when was it English? when did it ever race?) pulled in on the Solano diagonal. Stack of narrow of cardboard boxes on front seat; bicycle rack on back. Implied narrative...

Jaime Dávalos, songs and poems. "Ese toro," given to heartfelt enthusiasms and good Salta wine. Miguel Castilla, Cuchi Leguizamon, Eduardo Falú...circle of friends. "La calendaria," "Vamos a la zafra", "Canción del Jagandero"...

Worked as a potter, puppeteer, itinerant artist... "Entre fines del '50 y comienzos del '60 tuvo sus propios espacios en television: El patio de Jaime Dávalos, and Desde el corazón de la tierra...

"Alma de las golondrinas," soul of the swallows... "Se me vuelve camalote el corazón..."

* * *

(Note: camalote, jacinta de agua, or water hyacinth. "And my heart becomes a camalote...")

Analect 2.528x

9 July 2009. Sun, mild... Through window, for a moment--palm branches in the wind...

La Rioja, Los Hermanos Peralta Dávila. Esteban y Aquiles... "Somos como los robles... fuertes... y no sabiendo llorar, cantamos." (We're like the oaks...strong...and not knowing to weep, we sing.)

A history of trees...

Analect 2.527x

8 July 2009. Sun, even at dawn. Small birds in the mimosa--the local crew. Greetings from the east...

Juanele, in the middle of the night...


El aguaribay florecido

Muchachas de ojos de flores y de labios de flores.
En la sombra exhala--¿de qué su dulce hálito?--
los vestidos ligeros, muy ligeros, con pintas.

Arde de abejas el aguaribay, arde.

Ríen los ojos, los labios, hacia las islas azules
a través de la cortina
de los racimos
palidos.

Ríen los ojos, los labios. ¿Veis las muchachas o es
la tenue sombra ebria
y bordoneada
que alucina de muselinas claras
y de otras flores vivas--extrañas flores vivas--
riendo, riendo, riendo hacia las islas?

Muchachas de ojos de flores y de labios de flores.

Arde de abejas el aguaribay, arde.

* * *

The Pepper Tree in Flower

Girls with eyes of flowers and lips of flowers.
In the shade it's sighing--from what source this sweet breath?--
light dresses, very light, with small touches of color.

Burning with bees, the pepper tree, burning.

Laughing, the eyes, the lips, even to the blue islands
through the curtain
of clustered berries
pale ones.

Laughing, the eyes, the lips. Do you see the girls or is it
the tenuous shadow, drunken
and deep chorded
that would seem to beam of light muslins
and of other living flowers--strange and alive--
laughing, laughing, laughing even to the islands?

Girls with eyes of flowers and lips of flowers.

Burning with bees, the pepper tree, burning.


Juan L. Ortíz

Analect 2.526x

7 July 2009. Even gray.

Narrative and its discontents. A figure in a boina. "En Europe aparece históricamente documentada tanto en miniaturas de la Baja Edad Media como en figuras que adornan construcciones góticas..."

Trails and paths. Salta. Story of Juan Panadero--Juan the baker, as in the poem by Manuel Castilla, retold here by Cuchi Leguizamon, who set it to music:

"Nosotros teníamos un amigo, don Juan Riera, quien era propietario de una panadería en la calle Lerma. Manuel todas las mañanas le compraba el pan calentito, pero una vez al Barbudo lo dejaron sin trabajo en el diario El Intransigente, entonces no fue más. Pero al poco tiempo Rierita comenzó a llevarle personalmente el pan de la mañana. Manuel le dijo que no lo aceptaba porque no podía pagarlo y ¿sabe qué contestó Rierita? 'Antes, cuando usted podía, venía y me compraba el pan, pero ahora que no puedes es mi obligación llevarselo todos los días.' Mire qué filosofía."

"We had a friend in those days, don Juan Riera, who was the proprietor of a bakery on the Calle Lerma. Every morning Manuel would buy from him some fresh warm bread, but one time el Barbudo (the poet, whose nickname was "the beard") found himself out of his job at El Intransigente, the newspaper where he worked, so he stopped his morning visits to the shop. Nevertheless, after a little time, that Riera fellow personally began to bring him his morning bread. Manuel told him that he couldn't accept it because he wasn't able to pay him--and do you know how Rierita answered him? 'Before, when you could, you'd come to me to buy the bread, but now that you can't, it is my obligation to bring it to you each morning.' Look at that philiosophy."

(Note: The second figure is Themis Riera, Juan's daughter, who tells the story on El Blog de Themis.)

Analect 2.525x

6 July 2009. Sunshine announcing itself even at dawn, silver and blue-green ripples on face of pool, fragment of shamrock pennant from weekend festivities... Churning swimmers, depart and return...

Latinate possibilities. As in the wry and tender words of Jaime Dávalos, from his Cancionero, about the origins of La Candelaria: "...Nació una zamba, una tarde, de esas que yapan con el alba, en lo de Poncho Marrupe; en la vieja casa de la finca La Candelaria, delicioso paraje del Valle de Lerma, sobre las regueras del Río de Arias, allá...entre algorrobos y talares, tuscas y sauces playeros; donde en la umbria del monte se oye el moroso canto del zorzal en contrapunto con el isócrono lamento del crespín..."

“A zamba was born late one evening, one of those songs that come with the dawn, at Poncho Marrupe’s place, in the old house on the country estate, La Candelaria, a delicious spot in the Valley of the Lerma, on the waterways of the Río de Arias, yes, there…amidst native trees—the algorrobos and talares, tuscas and streamside willows; where in the shade of the woods one can hear the delayed call of the thrush, in counterpoint to the isochronous lament of the crespín…”


(Note: The crespín—tapera naevia, or striped cuckoo. An Argentine folk story about this bird tells of a woman calling out for the husband she has lost... It's a bit more complex, however: he's described as ever hard-working, whereas she loves to party. In his hour of need, the wife abandons him for several days of dancing and drinking and song, returning only after he’s passed on. But in her loneliness, like the crespín, she spends the rest of her days calling out...)

Analect 2.524x

3 July 2009. Gray morning, mild...

Mother and daughter across the way, hand and hand for just a few steps, then turning to cross the street. The normal accoutrements--her toussled hair, mild face, the child's hands one upon the other, as with an acolyte in a Taoist shrine somewhere in the Heng Shan. Everything balanced on tall red poles, tucked unevenly into face of yellow cliff. Jutting roofs with ashen blue-gray tiles. Two small figures make the ascent, their hands on a narrow parapet. Only one looks back...

Analect 2.523x

2 July 2009. White blotch on dark rubber tread, marked in long sweeping blow with a ball-ended stick--the most attentive meter maid. Her rickety vehicle--primarily white, toned-down--a kind of glorious tri-cycle with financial intent--the goal here is revenue. Be glad for a job...

A field with cows--an entire plain, that is. A sea of cattle, all descended from a few 16th century Spanish strays. Vacas criollas. In the early roundups the Argentine countrymen would use the term repuntar--the moment when the tide begins to rise or fall--to describe this vast flow...

Unending gathering...

Analect 2.522x

1 July 2009. Again gray. Solitary figure at edge of pool.

Leumann on the word pago--homeplace--and how in Argentina it took on a new meaning: "Y al fin cuando se hubo fijado la duradera fisonomía característica de nuestras llanuras, con postas, pulpería, puestos de estancia y vecidario ralo en amplitud de leguas, debió prevalecer en el contenido de pago la idea de lugar campestre nativo, con una, dos o más viviendas, y donde el paisano tenía mujer, hijos, amigos, vecinos distantes y aparceros."

"And in the end, when the ongoing physiognomy so characteristic of our open plains became set, with posts for changing horses, pulpería, the ranches, and an occasional neighbor some leagues away, there had to prevail in this new meaning of pago the idea of a native country place, with one or two dwellings, and where the paisano had his wife, his children, his friends, neighbors and ranch hands." (Alberto Carlos Leumann, La literatura gauchesca y la poesía gaucha, Buenos Aires, 1953)

Arreando vacas en San Carlos...

Analecxt 2.521x

30 June 2009. Gray sky...

Young couple, the dance--el triunfo--moving from a world of smiles and friends and dedications into a kind of enchantment--an unending awareness...and then return...


Triunfo de la llanura

He cambiado la rosa,
rosa precisa,
y me queda la vida,
la palomita,
la vida de la gente
que necesita
lo torcacita.

Me llegó la llanura
con horizonte,
desde el pie a la cintura
y todo el monte.
Los nidos me crecieron, las leñateras,
la vida entera.

Yo soy aquel que sufre
con la madera
los surcos, los inviernos,
la primavera.
Caramba con el triunfo
que no me deja
decir que siento mucho
que yo me muera,
la primavera.

La ternura me crece
país por medio,
este rulo de aire
que bailo y quedo,
que quedo y no me quedo
y si no puedo
es que me muero.

La paciencia es un arbol,
la casaurina,
es un té curativo,
un sapo al viento.
Caramba con la suerte
la rosa antigua
y que yo viva.


* * *


I have exchanged the rose
the very rose
and still I live on
little dove
the life of the people
that so need
the small dove.

The open plains have reached me
the horizon
from my feet to my waist
and all the open country.
The nests have flourished, the wood gatherers
all of life.

I am the one who suffers
with the wood
the furrows, the winters
the spring.
Caramba for the triunfo
that doesn't let me
say that I regret so much
that I may die,
the spring.

My affection increases
all across the land
this roll of air
that I dance and pause
pausing and moving again
and if I'm not able
it's that I die.

Patience is a tree
the casaurina,
a tea that cures
a country frog facing the breeze.
Caramba for this luck
this ancient rose
and that I live.

(Triunfo of the Open Plains, a song by Hamlet Lima Quintana)

Analect 2.520x

29 June 2009. El Cerrito pool, blue green in morning light, sliver swimmer shadows, shoulders, arms…

A line of fine wires, drawn along the parapet. Bird discouragement—towards what end? Protection of the newly shingled roof—or a human sensibility. Javed’s place, at dawn, with the bags of stale bread and cakes, scattering them all across the pavement. 7-eleven in its better days…

Toda la noche despierto
Tan grande pena lloré.
Toma esta rosa,
Dame un clavel.

All through the night, awake
Such a great sadness I wept
Here, take this rose,
And give me a carnation in return…

(A gaucho copla, quoted from Carlos Alberto Leumann in El Poeta Creador.)

Analect 2.519x

26 June 2009. Sun breaking through...

The singer is Liliana Herrero, in the Casa de Gobierno in Buenos Aires. The song from a poem by José Goytisolo, Palabras para Julia...

Tú no puedes volver atrás
porque la vida ya te empuja
como un aullido interminable.

Hija mía es mejor vivir
con la alegría de los hombres
que llorar ante el muro ciego.

Te sentirás acorralada
te sentirás perdida o sola
tal vez querrás no haber nacido.

Yo sé muy bien que te dirán
que la vida no tiene objeto
que es un asunto desgraciado.

Entonces siempre acuérdate
de lo que un día yo escribí
pensando en ti como ahora pienso.

La vida es bella, ya verás
como a pesar de los pesares
tendrás amigos, tendrás amor.

Un hombre solo, una mujer
así tomados, de uno en uno
son como polvo, no son nada.

Pero yo cuando te hablo a ti
cuando te escribo estas palabras
pienso también en otra gente.

Tu destino está en los demás
tu futuro es tu propia vida
tu dignidad es la de todos.

Otros esperan que resistas
que les ayude tu alegría
tu canción entre sus canciones.

Entonces siempre acuérdate
de lo que un día yo escribí
pensando en ti como ahora pienso.

Nunca te entregues ni te apartes
junto al camino, nunca digas
no puedo más y aquí me quedo.

La vida es bella, ya verás
como a pesar de los pesares
tendrás amigos, tendrás amor.

Por lo demás no hay elección
y este mundo tal como es
será todo tu patrimonio.

Perdóname no sé decirte
nada más pero tú comprende
que yo aún estoy en el camino.

Y siempre siempre acuérdate
de lo que un día yo escribí
pensando en ti como ahora pienso.

***

Words for Julia

You cannot turn back
because life pushes you along
like an interminable howl.

My daughter, it is better to live
with the joys of mankind
than to weep before a blind wall.

You'll feel hemmed in
you'll feel lost or alone
maybe you'll wish not to have been born.

I know well what they'll tell you
that life has no point
that it's a wretched affair.

Then always remember
what I wrote you one day
thinking of you as I think of you now.

Life is beautiful, soon you'll see
how in spite of the troubles
you'll have friends, you'll have love.

A man alone, a woman
Taken alone, one by one
they are dust, they are nothing.

But when I speak to you
when I write you these words
I'm thinking of other people as well.

You destiny will be with the others
your future is your own life
your dignity is that of all.

Others hope you will resist
that your joy may help them
your song among their songs.

And then always remember
that which I wrote you one day
thinking of you as I do now.

Never give in nor set yourself apart
joined to the road, never say
I can no more and here I'll stay.

Life is beautiful, soon you'll see
how in spite of the troubles
you'll have friends, you'll have a love.

As for the rest there's no choice
and this world, just a it is
will be all of your patrimony.

Forgive me I know not what to tell you
nothing more but you, understand
that I am still on the road.

And always always remember
that which one day I wrote you
thinking of you as I think of you now.


(Liliana Herrero sings a version by Paco Ibañez, which differs slightly from the original poem.)

Analect 2.518x

25 June 2009. Morning gray...

From Leumann again, on dejo (accent):

"Los idiomas heredados atan, traban el juego de la expression popular, que quisiera ser libre. Pueblos y a veces razas enteras se subordinan de esta suerte a moldes vocales impuestos por un destino histórico. En cambio, el dejo lleva un indeterminado contenido de intención y sentimiento, que no encuentra estorbos, y sube a la superficie del habla. Por siertas tonalidades un pueblo suelta algo de su intimidad inenarrable y traduce su alma como con la música melódica. Importancia mayor que palabras argentinas, formadas casi siempre con raíces europeas, tiene sin duda el dejo gaucho, con sus hondas pausas, con su serenidad de campo y cielo."


"The inherited languages bind, hobble the play of popular expression, that would wish to be free. Peoples and at times even entire races are subordinated in this manner to vocal modes imposed by an historical destiny. By contrast, accent carries an indeterminant content of intention and sentiment, one that finds no impediment, and rises to the surface of speech. Through certain tonalities a people frees something of its ineffable intimacy and translates its soul with the music of melody. It is of prime importance that Argentine words, formed almost always from European roots, have without doubt the gaucho accent, with its deep pauses, its serenity of countryside and sky."

Carlos Alberto Leumann, La literatura gauchesca y la poesía gaucha, Buenos Ares, 1953.

Analect 2.517x

24 June 2009. Even gray skies...

Martín Fierro dice, acerca de cómo educan los indios al caballo:

El animal yeguarizo
(perdonenme esta advertencia)
es de mucho conocencia
y tiene mucho sentido;
es animal consentido,
lo cautiva la paciencia...

* * *

(The gaucho) Martín Fierro says, speaking of how the Indians tame a horse:

The animal of the horse clan
(forgive me this observation)
is of much conciousness
and has great understanding;
it is a creature of tolerance,
what wins it over is patience...

(quoted from Carlos Alberto Leumann, La Literatura Gauchesca y La Poesía Gaucha, Buenos Aires, 1953)

Analect 2.516x

23 June 2009. Juan Ortiz...

YO ADORO...

Yo adoro una mujer de aire.
La sentíamos bastante como el aire,
brillante o secreta esencia, ah, de lo que nos tocaba;
alma del tiempo, sí, más allá de las formas,
sin forma siempre como el aire?

Cuando la mujer de aire se va,
no, no me digáis que las flores son flores y que la luz es luz,
que la colina sube hacia la nubes y que la tarde baja hasta las aguas
y que el anochecer viene de espejos por las lejanas islas, por las islas...
Ni menos me digáis, oh, no me digáis, que la luna de julio se ha entibiado entre las ramas...

No, no me digáis nada, que cuando la mujer de aire se va
el aire, el aire?, es una asfixia oscura,
y hay manos, muchas manos, tendidas hacia nosotros desde otras sombras como raíces invertidas...

Pero verdad que la mujer de aire siempre vuelve?
—Siempre regresa, sí, pero no basta adorarla porque ella es la libertad.


I ADORE...

I adore a woman of air.
We have felt her much like the air itself,
brilliant or secret essence, ah, of that which has touched us;
spirit of time, yes, there beyond the forms,
without form always as the air?

When the woman of air departs,
no, don't tell me that the flowers are flowers, and that the light is light,
that the hill rises towards the clouds and that dusk comes down to the waters
and that nightfall arrives mirrored in the distant islands, in the islands...
Nor less tell me, oh, don't tell me, that the moon of July has turned mild amidst the branches...

No, don't tell me anything, that when the woman of air departs
the air, the air?, is a dark choking,
and there are hands, many hands, stretched out towards us from other shadows like roots inverted...

But is it true that the woman of air always returns?
--Always returns, yes, but it is not enough to adore her because she is freedom.

Juan L. Ortiz

Analect 2.515x

22 June 2009. Pleno verano, light air...

Tarde

El mundo es un pensamiento
realizado de la luz.
Un pensamiento dichoso.
De la beatitud, el mundo
ha brotado. Ha salido
del éxtasis, de la dicha,
llenos de sí, esta tarde,
infinita, infinita,
con árboles y con pájaros
de infancia ¿de qué infancia?
¿de qué sueño de infancia?


Afternoon

The world is a thought
made real out of light.
A joyful thought.
Out of beatitude, the world
has emerged. It has come forth
from ecstasy, from felicity,
full in themselves, this afternoon,
infinite, infinite,
with trees, with birds
of infancy--of what infancy?
of what dream of infancy?

Juan L. Ortiz


Note: The Spanish word dicha carries both the meaning of happiness and of luck, or good fortune, in the sense of fate--from the popular belief in pagan times that individual fortune followed from the words pronounced by the gods at the moment a child was born.

Analect 2.514x

19 June 2009. Summer skies... lo de verano...

Analect 2.513x

13 June 2009. Even gray sky, pulsed with light...

Saer again--his evocative description of Juan L. Ortiz--Juanele--a poet from Entre Ríos, whose narrow face, narrow arms, wash of high wavey hair, sitting with a book, or a cat--or both at the same time--on long and narrow bench, mate with bombilla, also narrrow. A natural motif, as if to understand the spread of waters, the river--el Río Paraná--"Father of the Sea"...

Analect 2.512x

12 June 2009. To the north, clouds, heavy and rolling, while above, intermittent puffs...

Nostalgias Santiagueñas... Adolfo Ábalos y su hermanos. "Pago donde nací / es la mejor querencia / Y más me lo recuerdo / me larga ausencia ay, ay, ay, sí, sí..." A beautifully lyrical line of melody, almost impossible to sing--because of the way each phrase falls away into a kind of reverie. Adolfo born in Buenos Aires--on the same block as Aníbal Troillo, the illustrious tango bandoneón master--but the family returned to Santiago when he was just a year old. A child of both worlds...

Here Vitillo, one of the younger brothers...bailando con Elvirita,

Tu sombra de mistol he'i buscar
cuando ya cansao de tanto andar,
Vuelva de nuevo al pago
a mi Santiago, ay ay ay, sí sí

* * *

The shade of your mistol tree I'll have to look for
when tired of so much roaming,
I return again to my home place
to my Santiago, ay, ay, ay, sí, sí...

Analect 2.511x

11 June 2009. Gray skies.

Herb this morning, his white longshoreman's cap, yellowing at the edges, holding in both hands an inscribed photo from Harry Bridges, young guy behind ship's wheel, 1920's, barefoot, the Oakland docks...

Or yesterday afternoon, with Chuck--aboard Russkii Vek, the Russian Age, home port Leningrad, a red Soviet-era racing sloop, also worn, Sugar Wharf, Richmond... Oil tanks and grebes...

Other worlds. La Atamisqueña--Domingo Aguirre, the blind harp player with Andrés Chazarreta. Their first appearances in Buenos Aires, legendary. But now, in a highschool rec room, somewhere in the north--Chile rather than Argentina, dances from the same source. Chacarera y remedios. Without pretension...

Analect 2.510x

10 June 2009.

Hilda Herrera and Andrés Pilar, seated together at the piano, on a concert stage in Rosario, Argentina... She his teacher. Where the handing down becomes a kind of sharing--a love, if only in the most figurative sense. Affection, certainly, and the infinite recognition of the presence of another being. Nostalgias Santiagueñas, Adolfo Ábalos and his brothers...

"Todo empezó por Gardel. No nos gustó cómo cantaba un gato. Nos pareció que no llevaba ni el ritmo ni la melodía del verdadero gato, y pensamos que sería bueno hacerlo conocer a los porteños." (Adolfo Ábalos)

(It all began with Carlos Gardel. We didn't like the way he would sing a gato. It seemed to us that he carried neither the rhythm nor the melody of an authentic gato, and we thought it would good to make one known to the Porteños.)

Analect 2.509x

5 June 2009. Big clouds against runs of blue, interspersed, raked edges...

Gombrowicz in Buenos Aires, Ferdydurke. Saer: "...y Gombrowicz ha sostenido que, si no podían entenderse, era porque a Borges le interesaba la literatura y a él, Gombrowicz, únicamente la vida..."

Gombrowicz: "¿cúales eran mis oportunidades para entenderme con una Argentina intelectual al mismo tiempo que esteticista y filosofadora? Lo que me fascinaba en ese país eran los bajops fondos, pues allí me recibía por la alta sociedad. Yo estaba embrujado por la noche del Retiro, ellos por la CiudadLuz, París."

Ay, ay ay ay vi'a di'r parando
soy un criollo nada más
no vengo a buscar su aplauso
sólo quiero tu humandad.

Orlando Vera Cruz, Pilchas Gauchas

* * *

"...and Gombrowicz has maintained that, if the two of them were unable to understand one another--he and Borges--it was because Borges was interested in literature, and he, Gombrowicz, uniquely in life itself...."

"What were my opportunities to get along with an intellectual Argentina which was at the same time aesthete and philosophizer? What fascinated me in that country were the lower depths, for there I was received by high society. I was bewitched by the nighttime of Retiro, they by the City of Light, Paris."

Ay, ay ay ay let me tell you, coming to a close
I'm a criollo, nothing more
I'm not here to look for applause
I only want your brotherhood.

Orlando Vera Cruz, Gaucho Clothes)

Analect 2.508x

4 June 2009. Damp air, summer...

Reading Saer, late. Meaning of Patagonia. "...y según ciertos autores el nombre aludiría de manera más verosímil, a la pobreza de los indios, derivándole del término patacón, originariamente moneda portuguesa de poco valor, término empleado corrientemente en el río de la Plata hasta el siglo pasado y que subsiste todavía como vocablo popular para designar, por arquaísmo irónico, el dinero..."

José Larralde: "pa qué juntar patacones si el saco tiene un aujero".

***

("...and according to certain authors the name (Patagonia) alludes most accurately to the poverty of the Indians, derived from the term patacón, originially a Portuguese coin of little value, and a term currently employed in the region of the Río de La Plata into the last century and one that still subsists as a popular word to designate, through an ironic archaism, the notion of money..."

José Larralde: "and why put together your patacones if the sack itself has a hole..."

Analect 2.507x

3 June 2009. Early morning rain, pouring through birch leaves...

Mendoza y San Juan. Fiesta familiar. Cast iron pot, tended over outdoor fire. Puchero--a country stew. Man in white, reversed cap, moustache. Fragment of car amidst dusty trees, bicycle leaning in the shade. Racima de uvas. The usual, a documentary--except that these folks are not actors. Woman's face, older, high cheekbones, narrowed mouth over absent teeth. Calm in white, birdlike for a moment, smoking. Voices in the background, story of the gathering gradually brought forth, country accents, music always just behind. Una tonada...

"Y no pueden cantar cueca, aún menos tonada... con la garganta seca, era tragito el único que faltaba..."

* * *

(One certainly can't sing a cueca, much less a tonada, when the throat is dry...so, a little drink, that's all that was lacking...)

Analect 2.506x

2 June 2007. Gray morning, rain on sloping glass. Damp street...

Sommer, dunkelgrau. In Berlin with Omar Dubrosky, Magdeburg, at the Kaffehaus Köhler. An orpheus figure, reborn in Rosario, Argentinien. "...de los de gacho ladeado," the slouch hat, or was it "gaucho judío"--Gerchunoff's tribe, transplanted to Entre Ríos...surcos y bueyes, trigo, pantanal...

Rerouted to Berlin, already 20 years, guitar intact, the tangos and the milongas now twice removed--a gauzy white curtain, summer light, singing of plain blond woman with forthright glasses just to his side. Adaptations, wafts of Brecht, power of the will...

Analect 2.505x

1 June 2005. Begins June...gray, lovely...

"Si me voy de mayo a junio, si vuelvo de junio a mayo no me cabe en los dos puños toda la furia que traigo..." (If I go from May to June, if I return from June to May, even in my two fists I can't carry all my fury...)

Armando Tejada Gómez, an enchanted figure in a dark suit, declaiming his "Oration to the Flag,"

Quédate en el cielo, amor,
no bajes.
Aquí abajo, los grises
son tan grises
que, de algún modo gris,
van a ultrajarte.

Y sos tan linda allá,
tan nomeolvides,
-simple ademán de madre
por el aire-
que si caes, amor,
con la ternura
conque caen las hojas
de los árboles;
si llegas a caer,
acaso nunca
vuelvas a ser tan cielo
ni tan madre.

Déjanos a nosotros,
los humildes,
los que nunca te usamos
ni abusamos de tu inmenso
silencio planetario,
que cuidemos la altura
donde habitas,
celestemente hermosa,
como el aire.

Déjanos a nosotros.
De los otros,
es piadoso no hablarte.

Buenos Aires, 1977 Armando Tejada Gómez, Oración a la bandera


* * *

Oration to the Flag

(Stay up there in the sky, my love
don't come down.
Here below, the grays
are so very gray
that, in some gray way,
they will mistreat you.

And you are so beautiful up there,
so don't-forget-me,
the simple gesture of a mother
in the air--
for if you fall, my love
with the tenderness
with which fall the leaves
of the trees;
if you come to fall,
perhaps never
will you return to be such a sky
nor such a mother.

Leave it to us,
the humble ones,
those, we, who never use you
nor abuse your immense
planetary silence,
that we might guard the heights
that you inhabit,
celestially beautiful,
like the air.

Leave it to us.
Of the others,
to you it is pious not to speak.

Buenos Aires, 1977, Armando Tejada Gómez)