"L'Invitation au voyage" (Invitation to the Voyage) from "Les Fleurs du mal" by Charles Baudelaire

 Invitation to the Voyage

My child, my sister,
Think of the sweetness
Of going there to live together!
To love at leisure,
To love and to die
In the land that is like you!
The misty suns
Of those changeable skies
Have for me the same
Mysterious charm
As your fickle eyes
Shining through their tears.

There, all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

Gleaming furniture,
Polished by the years,
Would decorate our room;
The rarest flowers
Would mingle their fragrances
With the vague scents of amber,
The rich ceilings,
The deep mirrors,
The oriental splendor,
All would speak
To the soul in secret
Its sweet native language.

There, all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

See on those canals
Those vessels sleeping
Whose mood is adventurous;
It is to satisfy
Your slightest desire
That they come from the ends of the earth.
— The setting suns
Clothe the fields,
The canals, the entire city,
With hyacinth and gold;
The world falls asleep
In a warm light.

There, all is order and beauty,
Luxury, peace, and pleasure.

Borges

As most Argentinian icons - Evita Perón, El Che, Perón himself, Gardel, Maradona, etc., Borges is also a controversial icon. Today, 25 years have passed since he died. Admired and loved by some people in Argentina and not so much by others, there is no question that international renown Borges was the greatest Argentinian writer in history.

“Si pudiéramos comprender una sola flor sabríamos quiénes somos y qué es el mundo”

"If we could understand one single flower, we would know who we are and what the world is"

- Jorge Luis Borges


Photo: emol

Babel's Book Tower

As mentioned in a previous post, Buenos Aires has been named "Book
Capital of the World" for 2011. To honour such a tittle, the government
of the city of Buenos Aires is sponsoring an art installation you shouldn't
miss: "Babel's Book Tower" by Marta Minujin.

Marta is a famous, worldwide pop artist that has brought to life many "crazy"
ideas. She, for example, created a Book Pantheon, in the begining of Argentine Democracy. The installation was located in the middle of the city, it's dimensions were incredible. It was constructed by all the books that were prohibited during the Argentine military dictatorship which had somehow been secretly kept by book agents and sellers.

Minujin's Babel's Book Tower illustrates the incapacity people sometimes have when it comes to understanding each other. The installation is located in Plaza San Martin. It is a 7 story high metal structure that has 30.000 books on it's
inside. The books are protected by plastic to avoid weather damage and come
from 54 different countries.

The Tower can be visited until May 28th. You can also visit the inside of the tower. Once inside, you'll hear the word "book" in every language. At the end of your visit you'll get a copy of Jorge Luis Borge's story "Babel's Library".

Art installations are like life itself, ephemeral, that's why it's
good to see them when they are taking place, to be a part of them.

Have a fun weekend! xx

Buenos Aires Book Fair

Photo by: Jorge Molina (en la piel de la selva)

When Windows was first introduced in the early nineties it caused fascination. It made using computers easier introducing a simpler way of managing different programs. If we used Word, for example, double clicking allowed us to perform different commands, open more than one document at a time and work on other programs as well, be that Excell, Power Point, or any other of the programs that we are all familiar with today. Then, when it was time to shut our computer down, closing all the opened "Windows" requiered us to simply click on the "x". With the development of the internet we were able to apply a similar concept as Windows while surfing: click on the link, then in another and so on.

Although both Windows and the internet created grounds that allowed us to work comfortably from one single place and communicate faster and more effectively, they also made us go, in my opinion, bi-dimensional. The fact that we no longer have to go through the trouble of, for example, visiting a library or book shop to look for content has made us disregard the notion of all all the work that it takes to create, put together and display information in a given field - sometimes forgetting even what it's like to feel a real book, the paper, the art in the cover. Remember CD's? I know, that was a long time ago.

If you are curious and are in Buenos Aires, you have a chance to immerse yourslef in a world of books.

The Book Fair takes place every fall. Book publishers gather to present their book collections and launch new books and publications. This year, the Fair has even more relevance since Buenos Aires has been chosen by by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization as the World's Book Capital of 2011.

The Book Fair is also a good start to undesrtand why Buenos Aires is famed for it's cultural production.

It offers conferences and discussion panels in various subjects: Economics, Politics, Law, Psychology, Ecology, Management, to name a few.

This year it is has invited Mario Varga Llosa, Rosa Montero, Jorge Edwards and Wilbur Smith amongst many and various prestigious writers and thinkers.

It hosts music, choir and ballet shows as well as workshops on Textile Art from the Andes (Arte textil andino), Literature, Story Telling, Opera and Poetry readings. A cultural feast you shouldn't miss.

Where: La Rural Exhibition Center, Ave. Santa Fe and Sarmiento, Palermo, Bs As.
When: Til May 9, 2011.

Post by: Valeria Mendez Cañas.

Viggo Mortensen's Argentine Poetry Anthology

You know him, right? he recently presented an Argentine poetry anthology put out by Perceval Press, the small publishing firm he founded.

Mortensen, who spent his childhood in Argentina, is a big fan of local, soccer club San Lorenzo, and wore a team jersey to the presentation of “Nueva Poesia Argentina” (New Argentine Poetry) a compilation of work from a variety of Argentinean writers.

The anthology, presented at the Spanish Cultural Center in Buenos Aires, includes poems by Washington Cucurto, Mario Arteca, Francisco Garamona, Maria Medrano, Gabriela Sacone, Ana Wajszczuck among other young Argentine poets.

“I hope this book is a success so we can publish another title that includes other poets from the ‘‘90s Generation,’” Mortensen said.