If you’re reading this, then chances are you have at least a passing interest in photography: very few people leave home and travel half-way around the globe without wanting to capture their new environment. After all, how will you impress the folks back home without photographs of your new and exotic surroundings?
Photographing Buenos Aires is a little bit tricky though. Sure, there’s stuff like tango, the dog walkers in Recoleta, the colorful houses of La Boca, and that most classic photo of all – you, about to eat a huge steak – but there’s no grand vista, no easy-to-capture skyline that sums the city up in one shot. The only instantly recognizable physical landmark that Buenos Aires has is the Obelisk, and that’s pretty hard to get a good shot of. Shooting it from ground level on Avenida 9 de Julio just doesn’t do it justice: you’ll have to point your camera up at it and it’ll look like it’s falling over backwards in the photos.
(more…)
Posted in Food on 16. Apr, 2010
This is a guest post by Madi Lang from Send Love BA
Peanut butter, brownies, carrot cake, banana bread, chocolate chip cookies, homemade chicken soup, muffins, cupcakes…. Drooling yet?
Bummer you can’t get them in Buenos Aires, right? Not anymore!
SendLoveBA.com is here to provide you with all of your homemade gringo favorites. The best part? You don’t have to pay a cent! Your parents can order you a care package online at SendLoveBA.com, customize it with you favorite flavors and have it delivered right to your door.
Being abroad can be tough for parents; they miss you and would love to send you some fresh baked goodies in the mail. If they have tried to ship something here to Buenos Aires it probably never arrived, or maybe you had to truck it to Ezeiza or Constitucion to pick it up with a hefty fee. Now, parents can save over $100 USD and not worry about the package arrive late…or never. SendLoveBA.com makes it safe and easy for them to gift you your favorite homemade treats, baked especially for you and tasting just home.
Whether you have a birthday coming up, are feeling homesick, have a cold, or are just craving something besides empanadas and pizza – let your parents know they can order you exactly what the doctor ordered and send them to http://www.sendloveba.com
Join SendLoveBA on facebook to find out about new products and contests!
Posted in Art on 15. Apr, 2010
FILETEADO. What is it? Well if tango is the distinctive porteño dance, and steak-and-Malbec is the distinctive porteño meal, then fileteado is the distinctive porteño artwork. But actually, it takes a while to realize that fileteado is a distinctive style at all. That’s probably because it’s a style of artwork that decorates things – buses, cars, signs, shop windows etc. – and so it takes a back seat to what it’s decorating. You’d never see fileteado hanging in a gallery; it lives on the street.
(more…)
Posted in Music on 14. Apr, 2010
Fito Páez is the youngest of the four artists that we are profiling in this two-part article on legends of argentine music. He was born in 1963, making him a spring chicken of just 47 in 2010.
Like Charly García, Fito Páez was an early starter, forming his first band at 13 and beginning to play live just a year later. He gained notoriety as a songwriter with his 1984 album Del ’63 and as a result released another album in 1985 and yet another in 1986 in partnership with Luis Alberto Spinetta.
Fito Páez’s most interesting record is his 1987 album (yes, 1984-87 was a busy four years!) Ciudad de Pobres Corazones. It’s a dark, angry and heavily political album that was driven by the event of the assassination of his aunt and grandmother in Rosario. Despite the anger that’s evident in every line, it shows the depths of Páez’s talent as a lyricist.
(more…)
Posted in Music on 12. Apr, 2010
If you’ve never heard of Argentine tango singing sensation of yesteryear, Carlos Gardel, then clearly you’ve either been in Buenos Aires for less than a day and a half or you’ve been walking around with your eyes shut and your hands clamped tightly over your ears. El Zorzal Criollo (which means the “Creole Thrush” – no, I have no idea what that means either, it sounds like an STD) is just that famous in Argentina. Hey, he even has a subte station named after him!
That’s Mr. Gardel. You probably already know all about him. But how much do you know about the other legends of Argentine music: people like Charly García, Mercedes Sosa, Fito Páez and the smoldering “Argentine Elvis,” Sandro? Not much? Well don’t worry, because by the end of the second part of this article you’ll know so much that’ll you’ll be able to edit their Wikipedia pages! (*Note: this promise should not be taken seriously. Editing Wikipedia pages is a complex and dangerous business best left to the professionals.)
(more…)
