Good Airs, Good Reads: Archive

Because: Lay it all out for everyone to see and understand. I think I might need to craft a similar post about planning a move to Buenos Aires. I receive a fair amount of messages from people asking about moving abroad here, how to make it happen and how it works. Can you do it? Chances are if you’re wondering and considering it, it’s feasible. The real question, the deciding factor, is whether you really you want to do it. A balance and shifting of priorities govern all major, life-changing decisions, I think.

If you’re looking for more guided motivation, here’s CNNGo’s How to disappear for a year. Bollywood dancing!

Mar 29, 20124 notes

#round the world trip #moving abroad #Buenos Aires

Because: Yeah, I wish that were me saying that. I am crawling at 2.5—if I’m being generous. (English, Spanish, beginning Portuguese) I like that the interviewee alluded to the debate over the label of “fluency,” because language learning, I’m convinced, is a life-long process unless you are raised multilingual as a child.

Regardless, I am amazed by this teenager’s language skills. I plan to keep learning, though I’m fairly certain my number will hover in the low digits. But I’d love to have even a modicum of his skill level, at the very least for traveling purposes. I learned firsthand when in Munich for Oktoberfest back in 2008 the paralyzing feeling of being in a place where you don’t have the slightest clue what someone is saying to you or how to respond.

Mar 29, 20121 note

#language #BBC #fluency

“Despite the many frustrations of travel writing and the (ahem) low pay, I think it’s more important than my history and fiction writing. This is such a divided world, filled with hatred, ignorance and fear. Chipping away at that negativity by showing people all the wonderful things other cultures have to offer is a noble profession, and I’m grateful to Gadling for giving me the chance to do it, and I’m grateful to all of you for the support I’ve received for my last 1,000 posts.” —Six things I’ve learned about travel writing after submitting 1000 posts for Gadling

Because: I liked that I found all the insights in this post to be unexpected. It also served as a nice little jolt to keep on keeping on.

Mar 29, 2012

#travel writing #Gadling

Play

Mar 29, 20122 notes

#Zou Bisou Bisou #Mad Men #The Week #Gawker

Because: This letter and what it conveys about Marilyn Hagerty warm my heart. I hope to be half the woman she is with all that gumption.

I felt so protective when reading the original posts that set her story viral, I think because she reminded me of my own grandmother and great aunt, sisters raised in Iowa, always closely connected to their communities. Snark can’t bring her, or any of them, down.

Mar 14, 2012

#Marilyn Hagerty #Olive Garden #viral #Wall Street Journal

“In Paraguay, indigenous peoples account for less than 5 percent of the population. Yet Guaraní is spoken by an estimated 90 percent of Paraguayans, including many in the middle class, upper-crust presidential candidates, and even newer arrivals.” —

An Indigenous Language With Unique Staying Power

Because: Paraguay is Argentina’s neighbor, but the news out of the country that reaches me in Argentina is infrequent and quiet. I had no idea the country’s indigenous language had such a stronghold. I think it’s incredible. It also calls attention to how many regional, native languages we unfortunately have lost even in just Latin America. Language and culture are so closely intertwined. Globalization has its obvious benefits, but preserving individual cultures and their languages makes all so much more interesting.

Mar 14, 20124 notes

#Paraguay #indigenous language #Guarani

Tasting Menu

Because: Above are three interesting and unrelated, aside from being published in the same outlet, food stories I have read recently. Reasons detailed briefly below.

1. I have a friend working at a food co-op in New Orleans and I think urban food deserts are an important issue to address.

2. This is a form of writing I’ve always been curious about.

3. Travel news, so I’m interested. Who knew so much tomato juice was consumed, or why.

Buenprovecho.

Mar 14, 2012

#airline food #food deserts #The New York Times #cookboo writing #ghost writing

Because: Is this really as progressive as Argentina is regarding a woman’s right to choose? I began to talk with friends in Buenos Aires about the subject, and it seems it doesn’t take much inquiring to learn of someone who knows of someone (by whatever close or loose relationship, of course) who had to get a back-alley abortion, and word on the street is that they’re highly dangerous. With this context, the related Dirty Dancingscene is looping through my head and scarring me just as much as it did the first time I saw it. Please, more progress.

Mar 14, 2012

#abortion #Argentina

Paco

The 10p cocaine byproduct turning Argentina’s slum children into the living dead

Because: This article is from 2010 but it came into my consciousness only this week. I have no firsthand experience with paco, though I am sure I have passed people using it before. What I’m more certain of is that I have seen many people high on paco, and many kids. It’s something in their eyes and how they carry themselves; they look crazed and desperate but intimidatingly confident, totally devoid of fear. I’m not trying to be dramatic when I say you can feel it in their presence, even if it’s just on a bus. The quote in this article about kids scrambling across roofs like rats? My heart aches.

Also, I commend The Guardian for its honest coverage of Buenos Aires’ villas, as its possibly the only mainstream media outlet where I’ve read about them. If you’ll recall the piece on the city’s barras bravas also was published on The Guardian.

Mar 14, 20121 note

#paco #drugs #Buenos Aires #The Guardian

Because: If this is the case, Argentines are doomed. Still, can smothering a steak in a spice-laden sauce like chimichurri make a difference, as this study I read about the day before this piece suggests?

In my totally non-expert opinion, it’s all good for you, it’s all bad for you. Qué sé yo.

Mar 14, 20121 note

#health study #red meat #The New York Times #NPR #benefits of spices

Because:To get wistful and channel some (if not every) political candidate, the small towns in the U.S. scattered throughout all 50 states, especially the ones like this Water Valley Mississippi with personality and history, show what the country is made of. This article is a great feature, both regarding the subject and writing.

Mar 11, 20121 note

#Mississippi #small-town America #The New York Times

Because:I do love Malbec.

Mar 11, 2012

#The Seattle Times #Malbec #Argentine wine

Because:The high-low thing with Joan Didion, I like that. I also would like to say it applies to my travel style.

Mar 11, 2012

#Afar #San Francisco Chronicle #literature

Because:I would like to develop a language-learning program that employs this tactic. I am currently learning Portuguese, and I try to listen to songs, dialogue, any audio in Portuguese really, while at the computer in hopes my mind can do some Baby Mozart-like magic and absorb it all. I also am taking classes, but it never seems like enough, just like I feel as though I always will be learning Spanish.

Copyright pending on my idea.

Mar 8, 20127 notes

#learning tactics #recall #memory #New York Times

Because:I am always curious to read about writing and the creative arts process, even if it is a realm in which I have no skill to speak of. In this case, that’s literal. (See?! So bad.)

Mar 8, 20122 notes

#stand-up comedy #writing #New York Times

Play

Mar 8, 2012

#Keep Calm and Carry On #Huffington Post #Barter Books

Because:I would like to add one for Argentina, which I’ve learned in the workplace. If you walk into a room and people are eating, even if you are just passing through, it is customary to say “buen provecho.”

Mar 8, 20121 note

#Budget Travel #CNN #food etiquette #table etiquette #manners

Diplo visits the villa

DIPLO EN BA, from What’s Up Buenos Aires

Because: I wonder if all DJ’s and musical artists who take inspiration from world music undertake similar research when traveling abroad. I think it’s awesome. Also, I would like to formally request a place tagging along on all Diplo musical adventures the next time he is here.

I love the tidbit about “Brad Peet.” In my experience, Argentines (and many other Latin Americans) are often inclined to comparing those from the U.S. to a famous counterpart. It’s a culture of nicknames, and that’s an easy way to generate one.

Mar 4, 2012

#Diplo #Buenos Aires

“We live in a time of political and media demagoguery unparalleled since the 19th century. Many of our most important public figures have gained their influence and power by inciting and exploiting the ugliest of passions—by manipulating fears and prejudices—by serving up falsehoods as reported truth. In time these figures will one by one die. What are we to say of this cohort, this group, this generation? That their mothers loved them? That their families are bereaved? That their fans admired them and their employees treated generously by them? Public figures are inescapably judged by their public actions. When those public actions are poisonous, the obituary cannot be pleasant reading.” —

Andrew Breitbart, 1969-2012

Because: The death of Andrew Breitbart has forced into public discourse in the U.S. a very important conversation, which this obituary so accurately describes. Being removed from the U.S. has made me acutely aware of the rhetoric that comes out of my home country, and how attentive much of the world is to it, too. May no one take it upon him or herself to take Breitbart’s position, and may this be the turning point for changing the nature of our dialogue.

Mar 4, 20121 note

#Andrew Breitbart #Daily Beast

Mar 1, 201264 notes

#The 90s #1990s #Buzzfeed

Good Airs, Good Reads

March 2012

20 posts