PAGE 12, April 17
decades, David Byrne, former leader of Talking Heads, great promoter of world music solo-load your bike journey as he travels well presented and cities you visit. After years of taking notes and in 2009 published his observations in journals covered and cycling, a book just published in Castilian. In addition to U.S. cities, Byrne writes about Berlin, Istanbul, Manila, Sydney, London, and at every point deals with preaching his gospel of cycling convinced. Here are excerpts from the chapter on Buenos Aires, which includes a visit to Leon Gieco and Mercedes Sosa, a brief stint at Liniers and intrigue, written several years before this present cycle paths, why the locals prefer to sulk in their cars rather than embrace two wheels.
By David Byrne
Buenos Aires, located in the floodplain of the Rio de la Plata, is fairly flat, which, coupled with its mild climate and the streets more or less arranged in a grid, making it perfect to move in bicycle. Still could count on the fingers of one hand the number of locals who saw riding a bicycle. Why? I ever figure out why no one moves through the city by bike? Is there any explanation hidden secret to be revealed to me? Or am I a naive fool? "It is reckless traffic, the high number of burglaries, so cheap gasoline and because the car is an indispensable status symbol? So despised is the bike messengers even use other means to move?
I do not think it is due to any of these reasons. I just think anyone has seriously considered the idea of \u200b\u200bmoving bicycle. The meme rider has not been implemented or never took root. I tend to agree with him to Jared Diamond, who, in his book Collapse, says that people develop cultural affinities with certain foods, ways to move, types of clothing and customs so deeply rooted that, according to the author, persist in their habits to take, sometimes dragging their entire civilization to extinction. Diamond brings numerous historical precedents: for example, in the nineteenth century, a Norse settlement in Greenland, whose members persisted in engaging in farming, an activity clearly impractical. Never adopted or adapted, because it was culturally unacceptable, diet or habits of the local Eskimos, which ended up killing all. It was not even a settlement soon, and that lasted more than four years, more than enough time to convince himself of what was the best way. Of course, in this era of total dependence on fossil fuels and climate change, the lessons of history have a resonance Diamond threatening. Thus, although we like to think that people can not be so stupid as to aim directly towards self-destruction with all the means for survival in front of their noses, they can, and indeed it does.
I'm not saying that cycling is a matter of survival, although it may be an important part of how we survive in the future, "but here in Buenos Aires seems like a sensible move so that the only explanation I can think of no one pedal on the streets is cultural aversion.
CITY OF VAMPIRES
After the concert, Charly Garcia, who came to see the performance, invited me to join him a club. Charly, one of the instigators of the national movement of rock that emerged in the '60s, he became well known in the early '70s. It was contemporary folk artists and the new trova, but for people like Charlie, but respectful that music, folk was a style against which they had to rebel. He and many others represented sex, drugs and rock and roll: the decline in opposition to the political cause.
Man Ray, the band tonight, just start playing. Are the half past two. Leading the band is a woman who sometimes sings with Charly. In the aspect of social life, this city like New York late concerts in the morning, people partying until dawn, "but in more ways than one night life is lengthened more than in New York, now as before. The restaurants, mostly, do not close until four, much later than in New York. At three thirty in the morning, the streets are packed! The theaters offer regularly passes start at one and a half, and it is not The Rocky Horror Picture Show or other typical midnight movie: Lion King ends up at three in the morning! So after the movie, the audience is inevitably a bite or a drink. You can see whole families walking late at night! When sleep? As in the large cities of Spain, people-never late dinner before nine-thirty, and then you can go to see a show that starts late at night.
A city of vampires. Do these people not working the day? Do you make these times throughout the week? Perhaps there are two separate companies: the day and night, two shifts, two urban populations never meet and whose paths never cross. Maybe cocaine or huge amounts of yerba mate to stay awake? Or is that after the work is cast a little nap while the rest of us had dinner as scheduled in New York?
MUSICAL CONNECTIONS, CONTINUED
Early in the afternoon, Leon Gieco and I went to tea at the house of Mercedes Sosa, a legend in the music of Argentina for many decades. This makes me think of the human chain of contacts that has brought me here, to his apartment. In the early '90s, Bernardo Palombo, an Argentine folk singer, I was teaching English in New York. During the classes I started in the music of Susana Baca, Silvio Rodríguez and others, and I practiced my English basics of asking questions about music and the lyrics of their songs. Lafferriere Amelia, a friend of Bernardo here in Buenos Aires, had Silvio and also worked with the folk rock singer Leon Gieco, a friend of Mercedes Sosa. In my first tour of Argentina made a version of a song from Leon, "I only ask of God" (and other famous also for Mercedes, "Everything Changes"), and later in New York, Leon invited me to play with at a concert he did with Pete Seeger. (Connections are staggering, even for me. In fact, six degrees of separation music.)
Mercedes is an amazing singer and a personality. He began his musical career in the second half of the '60s and could be considered a kind of folk art singer, and that makes few concessions to conventional pop trends. In a way, some of these singers were musically closer to British folk models, because they sought inspiration in the roots and sounds of their own culture and their own history. A Mercedes it could be associated with the new trova, the new song movement that emerged here and throughout Latin America in the '60s and had no equivalent in the north, although there were some parallels with folk singers of the '60s, also included in his repertoire songs about politics and human rights. However, singing here about human rights and freedom was, at least in those days a matter of life or death. It required courage and passion with which American musicians have never had to deal with. The
tropical Brazil were imprisoned or sent into exile. In Argentina and Chile was much worse. Mercedes was arrested and exiled on stage. In Chile, Victor Jara's hands cut off and killed him. Leon also had to be exiled. Mercedes first fled to Brazil and then to Paris and Madrid, Leon, Ann Arbor, Michigan.
Leon looks a bit like Sting, if Sting drove a truck in the Patagonia. Leon is more rock than Mercedes, but both often take elements of Indian music and I am not refer only to tango, then incorporate into their songs and albums. To me, this fusion of music says so much of what these artists are capable as the lyrics of their songs. Their sound proclaims that are proud of their heritage and culture, which do not conform to imitate the American archetypes so popular around the world, though this sound mix also include elements of this music. In my opinion, they and many others see themselves and present of music as a third stream, a hybrid that is not exclusively one thing or another, and can borrow items from anywhere. They are musicians who define their identity with a formal means instantly recognizable sound. Leon has also written songs that, as one of Dylan, express in words the feelings of many people at a particular time, why is revered and many people know his songs by heart.
For a time, Leon was in a band with Charly Garcia, a renowned rock Buenos Aires, so that between Mercedes, Leon and Charles there is a thread connecting various musical trends quite far apart. And I suppose that, at least as a musician influenced by them, too am part of that chain, and I am excited to meet them, both for its music as for what they represent, politically and culturally. Mercedes is a big woman and resonant voice is comparable in size to that of an opera singer. His gentle features contain elements indigenous mestizos, or perhaps I only imagine what the poncho that usually takes the stage. The talks between her and Leon are deep and varied, ranging from memories of Victor Jara to laudatory reviews for David Lindley and other quirky and talented musicians in Los Angeles with whom Leon has recorded recently.
Now it's two in the morning, early by the standards of Buenos Aires, and we have approached the Japanese restaurant in a hotel. After dinner, leaving the area, a group of girls, who sat on the curb awaiting the appearance of local teen idol, involving a Mercedes with kisses and hugs. Separates more than a generation, but even the young fans know who is Mercedes.
UNEMPLOYMENT THE HOLY
I walk away from the center of the city. Walk aimlessly. This brings me to a village fair, an outdoor festival dedicated to the gaucho culture and country. Takes place in a small square in the suburbs. Passage along a line of people. Just the human line, without destination or end: only people standing, waiting patiently and moves a little from time to time, but do not know which way forward. The tail is long enough to disappear at some point at the end of the street, but not enough to see dónde acaba. La cola serpentea por varios vecindarios y pasa del centro de un pueblo al otro. A veces la pierdo de vista, y luego vuelve a aparecer como por arte de magia. Tiene por lo menos cuatro kilómetros de longitud. Medio millón de personas o más, me entero más tarde, esperando para ver a San Cayetano, santo patrono de los desempleados. Este es el santo al que le reza la gente cuando necesita trabajo, y hoy es su día. Todas las vías locales que rodean la iglesia del santo están cortadas por la policía. La gente viene a rezar para conseguir trabajo, un empleo. Algunos sostienen haces de trigo teñidos con pintura fluorescente, que se llevarán a casa como recuerdo, mientras que otros se van sin nada.
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