isoglossia

Update: tulip bulbs up now number 26, some in an advanced state of upness. In less jaunty news, the job hunt mentioned in passing two months ago is now back on in deadly earnest. This is taking up a great deal of time and energy, so I wanted to mention it for loyal readers, both of whom are probably wondering what the deal is with the non-posting and all. Until I have secured a way to continue putting food on my family, it’s unlikely that there will be much, or any, new content here.

This week marks five years since my departure from the United States. Here, then, an anthropological letter dealing with my first foreign home, to mark this anniversary and as a preëmptive attempt to atone for the long upcoming silence here:

The Argentine is a proud man, at times arrogant in his sense of mastery of his world. A machismo pervades his soul, an overweening manliness which colors his treatment of women and dogs, though the children of the Argentine are generally indulged with gentle treatment and sweetmeats. This machismo allows the Argentine to eschew table manners and forbids him from decorating his fingernails, although his women partake of this habit with an enthusiasm bordering on the ritualistic. The Argentine’s manliness is perhaps most manifest in his habits behind the steering-wheel of his motorcar, or precariously perched upon a scooter, motorised cycle, or motor-pedal-cycle, with which the streets of the Argentine teem.

The Argentine recognises no traffic law nor authority upon the streets of his great cities; “be foremost” is the only rule he holds dear. While the unwary visiting pedestrian may find himself knocked crown-over-teakettle by the overly aggressive operator of any conveyance, ranging from the mighty soya-bean-bearing twin trailers of the greatest camions to the humblest velocipede, the Argentine himself is so inured to the the perils of his streets that he views the use of headlights at night as superfluous, even effeminate. The stricture to keep to the right, common throughout all civilised parts of the globe, he honours more in the breach than the observance. While the Argentine relishes moving at great speed only when in or upon a vehicle, he is also known to extend his general languor to motorised movement, at twilight often creeping along at a slower pace than that at which a more ambitious soul can walk. These two extremes appear to create great chaos in the navigating of the city streets, shared in vast numbers by both children and dogs among the great quantity of circulating traffic. Yet the sight of either child or dog struck down is rare indeed, though many hounds, having a predilection for pursuing most vigourously and noisily all things mechanical, have the use of but three of the four limbs with which The Creator endowed them. In his economy, the Argentine views all two-wheeled vehicles as fit for the transporting of many persons. It is not an unusual sight to see four or five of this nation’s citizens gliding serenely along perched upon a single bicycle, arrayed and balanced with no less precision than that of the finest acrobatic performers of the glittering Orient.

The motorised vehicles of the Argentine require great quantities of a heavy, little-refined petroleum fuel locally known as “gasoil,” whose use in boreal climes, such as the frozen provinces of Canada, is largely restricted to the heating of shelters against the northern winter’s chill. Those selfsame vehicles, however, cannot be said to consume this fuel, as each motorcar, camion, or motorised cycle is everywhere pursued by a great plume of incompletely combusted fumes and carboniferous waste of its own manufacture. These excrescences merge into an odiferous miasma which then itself conjoins with the sweltering and humid air of the Pampas to cloak Argentine and visitor alike in a pall of weariness.

This weariness, however, knows two alleviations: the taking of yerba mate or “Paraguayan Tea,” Ilex Paraguayensis, and the honoring of the Latin custom of the siesta. Of the former, it should be noted that the earliest observers to visit these regions took note of certain deleterious effects associated with the taking of gourd after gourd of this potation, yielded by combining the dried, pounded leaves of a grey-green holly-like shrub with piping hot water. The beverage is sipped from its hollowed calabash through a bombilla, the graceful silver tube which comprises straw, strainer, and spoon. Yet while weakening of the stomach and continual flatulence are among those ills listed by an early Jesuit visitor, the present writer has suffered no more than half of these declines in health.

The siesta is the custom of sleeping away the hottest midday hours, when the sun reaches its zenith and most of the globe is hard at work seeing to the affairs of one’s self and one’s nation. Yet the Argentine is content to shutter his shop against the glare of the sun on even the greyest winter day in order to pass a few hours stretched upon a narrow pallet in a darkened room, taking his ease against the hours to follow. And while all activity ceases during these most vibrant hours, the Argentine is not the least incommoded by the impossibility of conducting the smallest piece of business between noon and sunset.

Perhaps contributing to the pervasive torpor which necessitates the taking of the siesta is the diet favoured by the Argentine, a regimen based largely upon the massive herds of cattle which ceaselessly roam the Pampas. While in many nations the muscular flesh of the beef-cow makes up the main source of sustenance, the Argentine is fond indeed of all parts of this animal, consuming with much frequency and relish great heaps of offal grilled upon a low girdiron over a fire of hardwood coals. With this carnivorous feast known as the asado the Argentine drinks moderately of the excellent wines which are shipped overland from the foothills of the great Andes range to the west, and consumes also bread as white as that to be found on the finest tables of Europe and North America. A modest salad is often prepared as well as an antiscorbutic.

Given the soporific effects of such a feast, the siesta is all but inexorable. After several hours’ rest, however, the Argentine is again ready to venture out into the perilous streets to vend his wares, tinker pots, or conduct his affairs as best he sees fit. An evening’s work earns sweet leisure, in which he partakes with the same gusto he lavishes upon the fat blood puddings and sizzling coiled bowels of the asado.

Sport and dancing are chief among the Argentine’s diversions. Similar to football, the local amusement known as fútbol shares many traits with the game familiar to most readers; its main divergence lies in the large role played by the spectators, whose vociferous micturation upon supporters of the opposing team is key in encouraging the mighty players as they vie for supremacy upon the pitch. When the foremost clubs clash, great torrents of urine may be seen flowing from the towering stadia of Buenos Ayres to mingle with the coffee-coloured waters of the River Plate.

When night may be said to have truly fallen, after two or three o’clock of the morning, the Argentine’s attention turns to the dance floor. But while the parquetry may be the truest metier of the Argentine, it is the comportance of his women there which most dramatically displays the importance of the dance. The Argentine female begins preparing herself for the rigours of the dance floor in the afternoon, after arising from her siesta. The details of her toilette, of her ablutions and exfoliations, are of course secrets as closely guarded as those of the musulman’s harem. But once emerging from the watercloset, the Argentine female’s grooming begins in earnest, continuing as the sun begins its descent and concluding only when night is many hours old. A full hour’s time may be devoted solely to the beautifying of the fingernails, though the Argentine male may scoff. The hair of the Argentine female must be ironed, even if it be already smooth and blonde or of a coppery red. The device employed for this harrowing task is not unlike that used in the sculleries for the preparation of a snack known as the Carlitos, a slim sandwich of ham and cheese, heated upon an iron device until the cheese softens. Once the hair has thus been mastered, the body must be adorned with the scantest clothing, such that the midriff be always exposed, though it may be the austral winter. Word has reached this correspondent that the Argentine female’s taste in intimate apparel is unparalled for brevity and decorative effect, yet he has but inadequate direct experience to confirm or impugn such reports. Nevertheless, once upon the dance floor the Argentine female’s undergarments are nearly visible, such is her enthusiasm for sheer fabrics and the snuggest possible fits of the latest fashions from the Continent. Indeed, such is the closeness of the fit favoured, that the only thing which may insinuate itself between the Argentine female and her snug bodice is an ample layer of eau de Cologne and heady perfumes, with which she splashes herself with abandon, such that, en route to the dancehalls, with dozens of Argentine females riding perched upon the pillions of a fleet of motorised cycles, the traveller may find himself borne along in an exotic slipstream of intoxicating and musky scents, strong enough of a Saturday to overrule even the reek of gasoil inadequately burned and the errant streams of urine mentioned above.

Stockings of the sort made from the latest synthetic fibres are not strictly necessary to draw the eye to the legs of the Argentine female, yet they are popular on these legs, characterised by a lithesome grace. Especially sought after are those garters manufactured of NY-LON, a filament whose popularity has moved well beyond its joint birthplaces of New York and London to envelope in a mania large parts of Latin America, if not the world itself. These “nylons” are frequently adorned with eye-catching patterns of geometric intricacy which cause an effect not unlike that to be seen on the richly tattooed limbs of the headhunting tribes of southern New Guinea. These stockings ensure that no leg shall go unnoticed, and that all may take note of their excellence of form, and that, from their beginnings in shoes of the finest kidskin with the highest possible heels, the legs of the Argentine female indeed go all the way up.

Once in the dancehall, or discotheque, the syncopated rhythms of a unique musical form may be heard, the cuarteto or cumbia, which, while distinct styles of music, are impossible to differentiate in the ears of your correspondent. Much is made of the accordion, and both singing and shouting occur. As among many tribes of the Dark Continent, dance constitutes an important social event, with many thinly-veiled courtship rituals to be dispassionately observed, as the Argentine, male and female, seek suitable mates. To this end, the Argentine female writhes about with a feline intensity rendered improbable by her patria’s official religion, though the jaguar-worshipping Konkorokofoo of the Amazon basin would likely be reminded of their inky deity by her gyrations. Yet her enthusiasm is matched, if not bettered, by the Argentine male, whose lasciviousness during the small hours of the morning is equal, and perhaps not unrelated, to his indolence during those hours when the sun shines hotly down upon the Pampas, so rich in soy and cattle. And as that sun rises once again over those Pampas, the Argentine makes his way wearily home, to begin another day as the proud master of the sweeping vistas of his great nation.