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)

Analect 2.504x

29 May 2009. Slight movement of the leaves. Black truck passing. Girl in blue...

And scenes that fail--or is it only in their beginnings? Jana Purita--singing on a rooftop somewhere in Buenos Aires, with Fierro Chifle and two others. Or perhaps it should be Rosita Quiroga, then a girl from La Boca, seated now, leaning forward over her guitar, impossibly long eyelashes-- "Pero ché, me estás bromeando, soy más vieja que la biblia...." Certain and sardonic--like the stridently Italiante phrase endings--an upward lilt putting a point on each gesture. Provisional, everlasting...

Analect 2.503x

28 May 2009. Satin gray clouds. Figure reaching into back seat of bluish-gray Mercedes, emerges holding white plastic bag. Life of the 7-eleven. A 300E. Stack of small mass-produced wine barrels, plastic spigots and printed wood trim. Imitations of imitations...

A civilization of numbers--that's what she taught me. La Plata, 1961, lesson's in castellano with Gustavo's aunt--the sister of Lea. Description of oceanliner, passengered by Americans. Every act a number...

Or puro campo. Omar Moreno Palacios, togther with Julia Josefa Palacios Moreno, el 9 de julio de 1971...

Analect 2.502x

27 May 2009. Cool and sunny, here in Berkeley. All those k's and hard b's...

Cuti y Roberto Carabajal cantando una zamba de Carlos Carabajal... La de Olvido.

Difícil será poder olvidar
Tus ojos que tanto amé
Y mientras la noche se vá
Solo sé que ya nunca más ha de volver

Dichoso de aquel que pueda besar
Tu boca llena de amor
Jardín que me diera la flor
Y por el frío de olvido marchitó...


Tus ojos de luna son
Miel en tus labios hay
agüita que corre y se va, ya se va
Y tal vez ya nunca he de alcanzar...

Analect 2.501x

26 May 2009. Sunny, with a touch of warm.

Un gatito--as danced on a midnight-blue stage by Santiago Ayala, El Chúcaro--"el bailarín de la noche"... Fragments of the ideal, partial knowledge, all the way--given focus and reconstruction...

"...así también después de su desaparición (de los indios argentinos) los que han prevalecido siguen, de un modo involuntario, perpetuándolos en el idioma mismo que hablan, no únicamente a causa de la toponimia o de ciertas incorporaciones léxicas, sino también de gestos, de imágenes y de interjecciones intransferibles y vivaces..." (Juan José Saer, El río sin orillas)

("...and so it was that after their disappearance (of the Argentine Indians), those who have prevailed continue, in an involuntary way, to perpetuate them in the very language they speak, not only on account of place names or certain lexical incorporations, but also in their gestures, their images and their interjections at once indelible and alive...") (Juan José Saer, The Boundless River)

Analect2.500

22 May 2009. Even grays.

Lee with small knit hat, perched on edge of recyling bin, eyes alert. Three strangers, waiting for the G. One with watch cap and all-black clothes, hunched, head shifting from side to side, looking up momentarly. Another, her glasses, resolute, electronic device unseen. Then, the sidekick--lip earing, punched out goattee, t-shirt reading "Obey." Jams his bike up onto back wheel, a gesture of authority--within this tiny framework of defiance...

Visitors all...

Analect 2.499x

21 May 2009. Gray, almost with some sun. Paciencia...

Wagon on long road, tilted back on two truck wheels, single driver, Santiago del Estero. Coya. Early morning, from the shadows--or that's how it feels. Layer of trees in the distance, merged in the haze.

Unintentional autobiographies. Wheat, barley, rye, spelt and oats...

Analect 2.498X

20 May 2009. Morning sun, crossing Solano on the diagonal, chilly wind...Dylan song...

Carlos Castellanos, a man of courtesy, from Guatemala, working patiently on the corner PC. Where moments before, the image of two dancers, in traditional dress, together in what appears to be an Argentine schoolroom, silhouetted by the white board/black board just behind, dark linoleum floor, and to the side, a pair of girls at long study table, each with her head propped on one arm, watching in mild interest... Impossible, to recreate the past...

Somewhere in Santa Fe.

Brooke...

Analect 2.497x

18 May 2009. Cooler and gray, an even light.

The good doctor, quoting Daniel Boone, had he ever been lost in the woods? "No, no, I was never lost...but I was once bewildered for three or four days..."

Bewildered, condition of wilderness, as in Amaicha of old...Valle del Tafí. Historias Andantes, and the travelers themselves--Chugo, Héctor Roberto Chavero, Axel y Roslie...

Lo posible...

Analect 2.496x

15 May 2009. Peaceful gray morning, touches of blue just under far edges of the clouds...

Early swimmers, butterfly and crawl, Emery on the high stand, as ever. Ripples of light on pool-green water. Vigorous figures just below.

Highland peoples. La Puna--in the range of 14,000 feet... Valleys of the Calchaquí...

"Entonces, ahí está el asunto: ¿como devolver el canto a la selva? ¿cómo hacer para que vuelva el ¡ay! de la paloma?, el zorzal que huyó, el pechito colorado que no volverá nunca aterrorizado por el ¡Tac! de cada hachazo. Buena preocupación para nosotros músicos que se dicen compositores y tocan lindo el piano, el violín, el charango y la quena. No trabajando en la ciudad para llegar al disco; cantando al campesino, haciendo música con sabor del lugar; quién sabe si esa no es una manera simbólica de pedir perdón a la selva y devolverle un pedazo de su canto..." (Atahualpa Yupanqui)

* * *

"Then here we have the matter: how to return song to the open country? how to regain the "ay" of the dove, the thrush that has fled, the red breast that will never come back, terrorized by the "chok" of the axe blow. A worthwhile preoccupation for our musicians, who are spoken of as composers and who play beautifully the piano, the violin, the charango the quena flute. Not by working in the city to arrive at a recording, but by singing to the country people, making music with the flavor of place; who knows if this might not be a symbolic way of asking pardon of the open land, of giving back to it a fragment of its own song..." (Atahualpa Yupanqui)

Analect 2.495x

13 May 2009. Early crows, sometime around dawn...

First memories, always in question. A glass partition facing the bay, California Street, overlooking Convair plant, or the red-brick kelp works--was it that? Cervezería...

Addictions to the present as well. Carlos Santana in the Argentine grade schooler's essay on Don Atahaulpa Yupanqui, where knowledge is power. The Coyas--or Kollas--or Qolla... "Desde la Puna Qolla de Abra Pampa..." A territory called Argentina...

Names and picturings. Florencio Molina Campos, his goofy gauchos--by me that is. But hidden within, something true, perhaps? A resonance...

Analect2.494x

13 May 2009. Mild, some sun, somewhat warm...

The challenges of indecision. Especially when guided by the need for conclusiveness. As opposed to simply indecision.

A small round wooden platform, worn red pillow on top. For sitting, next to wide table, also worn--marked and gouged from years of use. Formica, an old acquanitance, worn down in pillows of brown cloud. Rewarding to the touch...

Youree's yes's and no's, slight movement of her head, either up an down, or subtly downward and to the right. Economies of feeling, expressed with gentle concision.

Marks on stone...

Analect 2.493x

12 May 2009. Like yesterday, like tomorrow. Sun, very light breeze.

Three cement contractors at work across the way. Their over-size white truck pulled up close, air-compressor, jack-hammer. Intermittent racket. Hand tools--a pick, a worn shovel and a wide broom (stiff orange polyester fiber). One of them standing now at side of pit, hands shoved in pockets, testing edge of hole with his boot. Dusty faces, white Portland lime.

Wheel barrow with long sloping red handle...

Analect 2.492x

11 May 2009. Mild sun, milky light.

Reading El Canto del Viento, late.

"Un criollo santiagueño, en Salavina, canta con áspera voz su copla. Pero tiene en su auxilio, para lujo de su decir, su paisaje, su jumial, su arena, el aire de su pago, las candelas que los abuelos encendieron en su sangre..." (Atahualpa Yupanqui)

* * *

("A criollo from Santiago del Estero, in Salavina, sings his copla with a rough voice. But he has in his assistance, bringing a kind of luxury to his speech, his landscape, his Jumial, his sandy earth, the air of his home place, and the candles that his grandparents set burning in his blood...")

Analect 2.491x

8 May 2009. Sun, quiet filtered May light...

Late into the evening…or was it night…or was it? Raucous double song—both ends of the table—merging at times into one emphatic wave. “…from redwood forests…" Greg’s clarinet obligatos, musical observations, as of a landscape. Anthony and Steph, side by side, Nicole, smiling. Glimpses of faces, engaged, from so many beginnings. Origins, as in the touch of a pencil on soft paper...

A piece-work quilt, admitting all impossibility. Affections, too, also impossible... Or perhaps not. Gerrel and Mildred, almost dancing. Aimee's shoulders, moving like the hills...

Songs, and Places...

Analect 2.490x

7 May 2009. Sun all of a sudden. Blue sky, one puffy pink-white cloud, tucked in behind new 7-eleven roof.

The claims of the ancient accordeoniste. Or not so ancient, perhaps. Fields of Salta, Jujuy, or somewhere in the litoral. A man in a chair in an open field. Button box with single strap, pushed into closed position. The second figure, Carlos Vega, doyen of Argentine musical folklore, who leans over the chair. Trim and precisely dressed--the starched shirt, flaired bow tie. Shape of his head like that of some particularly curious little boy--now grown, wandering the countryside, the mountains, the fields, in search of song.

Zorzal...

Analect 2.489x

6 May 2009. From salamanca to concert stage, decked out in gaucho gear, inevitably. The music, however, holds... In the tradition of the blind harp player (as with the Ukrainian bandura--from the Greek pandora--the instrument used by ancient Zaparozhian Cossack bards to accompany the dumy, their national epic poems).

"Nostalgia Indígena," one of Chazarreta's pieces--but what precisely is the meaning here?

Atahualpa Yupanqui: La Corpachada--mountain ceremony among the Cuyos, coca, horse mane, bull's hide, threads from a poncho--offerings, early evening, deposited in a pit dug in center of a corral high in the Andean foothills...

Que la Pachamama los reciba,
regalitos de la tierra...
Que la Pacha nos ampare,
que multiplique la hacienda...
Aunque se agrande el corral,
que se güelva cielo y tierra...

* * *

(May the Pachamama receive them,
these little gifts of the earth...
May the Pacha protect us
and multiply the flock...
Even as the corral is made large,
may heaven and earth be returned...)

Analect 2.488x

5 May 2009. Gray dawn, rain in the night. Sound of gulls up on the avenue--Javed's aviary breakfast program.

Or Domingo Aguirre, whose mysterious and beautiful harp illuminates "La Atamisqueña" on an early folkloric recording. A santiagueño, like Andrés Chazarreta-- but received with great enthusiasm in Buenos Aires, where in 1925 a distinguished visitor had occasion to hear Chazarreta's musicians in the Teatro 25 de Mayo:

"Entre los espectadores se destacaba el profesor Albert Einstein, quien se encontraba dictando conferencias en la capital. Este declaró «que la música le produjo una honda impresión por su misticismo, su originalidad y la intensidad de su expresión ... ». Einstein se acercó a saludar al grupo y éste le retribuyó realizando una función en su honor. El cronista de un diario de Buenos Aires reconoció en su columna que ni él ni muchos autorizados en temas artísticos podían explicar a Einstein «el significado mítico» de las obras sin el programa donde daban a conocer lo que se representaba como por ejemplo «Nostalgia indígena», «La Telesita», y la «Cacharpaya»." (fundacióncultural.org, Santiago del Estero)

("Among the spectators there stood out Professor Albert Einstein, who happened to be giving conferences in the capital. According to Einstein, 'the music produced in him a deep impression, because of its mysticism, its originality and the intensity of its expression...' Einstein came up to greet the group (of Chazarreta's musicians), who responded by presenting an event in his honor. A journalist in one of the Buenos Aires newspapers noted in his column that neither he himself nor those authorized on artistic themes were able to explain to Einstein 'the mythic significance' of the musical works without a program that made clear what was being represented, as for example, "Nostalgia indigena," "La Telesita," and "La Carchapaya.")

Analect 2.487x

4 May 2009. Late spring rain, gray skies. Lila in red woolen coat, standing in shadow doorway. Nepal...

Reading late: El Canto del Viento. "Por más que la dicha busco..."

Andrés Chazarreta... Santiagueño...

Analect 2.486x

1 May 2009. Light gray sky, wet streets, rain.

Miss Argentina from 1967. A magazine cover, interior with pale green. Bit of desk or side table to the left, stoneware bowl, small furled glass plate, set against pale green wall--a color more insitutional than domestic, but recall, we are in someone else's world. Striped top, gray-gray-bluish-pink, and a robin's egg skirt verging on the mauve. Modest, in some knowing way, the red field above and to the left, announcing...

Gente y la Actualidad...

Analect 2.485x

30 April 2009. Small clouds floating high above, packed close, off the River Plate... El pato anteojillo--speculana specularis--the spectacled duck to us. Pathetic fallacy at work, even here, in Bariloche, the remote foothills of the Andes. Whose range includes southern Chile and west-central Argentina, nesting "by fast flowing rivers...and nearby standing waters..."

Juncos, juncales...

Analect 2.484x

29 April 2009. Sunny pale sky, coldish breeze.

Late at night, Jeszcze Polska nie Zginela... Faces of Polish soccer players in a Berlin sports ring. They stand side by side, with a row of children just in front. Individual movements of their faces, each one's voice...

YouTube screen grab of Oceanside wave. Gray water, gray sky...as always...

This morning, by the big window on Solano, pc earphones tucked under hat, cords twisting to harddrive tower. Voice of Atilio Reynoso... Domingo Pampeano, also a song...

Analect2.483x

28 April 2009. Blue times blue...

Estilo Viejo, as played by Atilio Reynoso. La música de la pampa...

Si usted no conoce el sur
y piensa que es el desierto
no sabe lo que es La Pampa
porque ignora su secreto
La Pampa es un viejo mar
donde navega el silencio...

(La Pampa es un Viejo Mar, Juan Ricardo Nervi)


* * *


(If you are not familiar with the south
and believe it to be a desert
then you don't understand what is Pampa
because you ignore its secret
La Pampa is an ancient sea
and what plies there is silence...

La Pampa Is an Ancient Sea, Juan Ricardo Nervi)

Analect 2.482x

27 April 2009. Gray skies.

La Huella: Santiago del Estero. "Aprendí, como en una universidad salvaje y abierta, silente y misteriosa como una salamanca, las músicas más hermosas y representativas de la región. Muchas las reuerdo aún. Otras han quedado en una zona oscura de mi espíritu, como un secreto que jamás se podrá develar, pero que alienta el pulso de la sangre."

(La Huella: Santiago del Estero: "I learned there, as if in a wild and open university, silent and mysterious as a Salamanca, the most beautiful and representative songs of the region. Many of them I still remember. Others have remained in a dark zone of my spirit, like a secret that never could be revealed, but that nourishes the pulse of the blood.")

Atahualpa Yupanqui, Este Largo Camino



Note: The Salamanca myth has to do with the underworld--in this case, a cave open only to adepts, who are severely tested in its rites. Derives perhaps from Arab brujería (witchcraft) in the caves around Salamanca, Spain--and may be related to the Faust legend. In any case, the name struck a chord with the country people of Santiago del Estero (and elsewhere in the Argentine northwest). The folkloric musicians associated the Salamanca--and its trials--as a (mythical?) source of their musical prowess. Don Atahaulpa clearly connects with this tradition in his final sentence...

Analect 2.481x

24 April 2009. Sharp yellow band of sun on Honda glass...

Cuadros de la Ciudad. Fray Mocho y Cnia, barrios del Sur, Buenos Aires, los años pasados. Un mozo viejito, vida de payaso--o sea payador... Calles sombreadas, de la tarde, otra vez...

A Media Luz...

Analect 2.480x

23 April 2009. Gray morning cloud, cold. Burlap bags on bed of truck, pile of damp brown sand. Two stucco workmen in worn jeans, hands jammed in their pockets, heads thrown back, following the movements of a compatriot on scaffold high above.

New shingles pretty much like the old--minus the variations of time. Guarantees of interestingness, now gone wanting.

As with a song--Atilio Reynoso, his "Estilo Viejo"--much to recommend. Or W.H. Hudson, Far Away and Long Ago...

Analect 2.479x

22 April 2009. Silhoutte of green ladder against expanse of blue. Small jet slips away to the left. Soft explosive report of roofer's pneumatic nailer... Calls back and forth, Korean voices...

Or others, in turn. The carpincho, for example. Almost unheard. Montes y juncales, siempre cerca del agua. Nose and tiny round ears held just above the surface--the capybara--a Tupi word, Guaraní. The mother with ten nipples, nursing two to eight young...

Analect2.478x

21 April 2009. Naked roof on milky blue sky. Scaffolding and cigarettes, language unknown...

As with the chiripá, or the rama, or the bird... Holding in space against a milky page...

Allá le voy a mostrar
mi mancarrón, mis dos perros,
unas espuelas de fierro,
y un montón de cosas más.
Si es entendido, verá:
un poncho de fina trama,
y el retrato de mi Mama,
que es ande rezo pensando
mientras lo voy adornando
con florecitas de retama.

(milonga)

Analect 2.477x

20 April 2009. Ojalá...

Analect 2.476x

17 April 2009. Without and within... Richard's new book, Great Basin Poems, on earth-colored stock. Working cattle in the 1950s. An opening into a world...

Last night: cowboys and la frontera. Nuevo Lareto, Sinaloa, LA, Sleepy Lagoon. Pachucos and the Repatriation Act. Kat and Mildred take us back through time, down Mexico way--but not quite. The borderlands, rather, and an entire culture so engendered. Braceros--in the lilting and effortless voice of Pedro Infante, while film clips reveal a darker truth... Lydia Mendoza and her sister, their impossibly close harmonies, Freddy Fender, and Lila Downs. Richie Havens, too. Vision from 1958, the gym floor, Oceanside High... "Para bailar la bamba..."

Kat: "She was pregnant when they crossed the border..."

Then: Chalino Sánchez and his son, Adán, both lost. Mildred's mom: "They shouldn't of gone back..." Her own growing up in the Salinas Valley, ancestors all...

La Llorona...always by waters...

Analect 2.475x

16 April 2009. Springtime now. Restored roof in morning sun, tradesmen done.

Argentina, Provincia de Buenos Aires, en la década de 1880. Jacinto Duva (de barba espesa) da un cigarillo a su hermano Mauricio Duva... The founding of San Mauricio...

Zanja Alsina, a kind of of the Wall of China--but carved into the earth...

(Lugar Historico)
ZANJA DE ALSINA (1876-1877)
EXTENSION 374 Km.
Paralelo a la misma se originó, casi una rastrillada mas,
el "Camino de Zanja", el que Ud. está ubicado
catorce eran los fortines en el partido de Rivadavia

Analect 2.474x

15 April 2009. Chill wind, endless blue. Woman in long black wool coat standing alongside light green car with curvy roof. Seen for an an instant...

Then, the good doctor, in queu at 7-eleven with white poly bag of ripe bananas, dark yellow with fine brown lines. Ripple of color on the label... Workcrew continues on roof as well: Jerome Blank's green-rated shingles, installed by veteran tradesman with white hair, in perfect rows. The younger ones attend...

Calle Florida, reseen. Porteños all...

Analect 2.474x

14 April 2009. Blue all the way across. Two workmen high up on Navigator Escrow--now the Jerome Blank Building. New shingles on an old mansard roof. Sound of hammer from a distance--reassuring... Water bottle balanced on wooden batten...

Thoughts of repair. As in a note from across time. "I have been reading Analects for about a year now..." Where we left off--the small house on California Street, upstairs. Melville's Pierre...or, the Ambiguities... The affinities, too... A sailmaker's loft in BC...

"...on Prince Edward Island..."

Analect 2.473x

13 April 2009. Sunny with fluffy clouds to the south, filtered light. As it should be.

Long blue pipes stacked to side of street--heavy PVC with steel tubes at the ends, rusted, to join. Metaphors of emplacement. Runs and flanges...

Late in the night: a discussion of what's been written about the design of parks, following Adrián's Castellano text... Andrew Jackson Downing, Olmsted and all the rest. A move to corral the maximalization of capital--those long New York blocks with street-front galore. Sarmiento's visit--to a cemetary in Brooklyn, the Green-Wood, hyphen likewise rusted, a golden red...