Vreau sa-mi spui, frumoasa Zaraza...

Zaraza (other than contagion in Russianⁱ) denotes rather well known Romanian song. It was written between the wars by Cristian Vasile - a consummate marketeerⁱⁱ that mostly used his own singing as his venue - on the basis of raping an Uruguayan tango and implanting his own soapy, syrupy lyrics atop. Compare and contrast a rendition of the original (by Ignacio Corsini, in my estimation the better) against the mangled Romanian version. Compare the crisp, expressive guitarⁱⁱⁱ to the I-dont-even-know-what-the-fuck-that's-supposed-to-be, and even if you're not able to understand the lyrics^iv I suspect the differences between the quality of the voices involved are still quite audible. One's an artist. The other... Mos Teaca.

But anyway, this is all quite besides the point.

So walking around^v town I stumbled on this fabulously great building on Cordoba :

I have no idea what it is, but its arrogant roadway^vi inspired a new feature for my ideal, eventual harem palace.

And here's pulled pork, in a cast iron pot, in Argentina. Because you can have anything you wish, just as long as you're willing to make it. Well, except the pot. Didn't make the pot. Or the table. Or the pork. We didn't even make it through the pork, come to think of it.

And here's something that needs so much further explanation I'll pretend it doesn't need any.

Seriously, Widget Hairdo Guy, polenta for when I need polenta ? Fab.

And in line with that, here's a name tag, and under the name tag a story :

The story is that yesterday I went out to check out the Buenos Aires BDSM scene. The major item was going to be a Le Deviant, on Hipolito Yrigoyen 2592. Supposedly some major club thingee. So we go there, and get dropped off in front of a solidly locked metal gate. No Le Deviant. I was kinda... you know, wtf trollage is this.

The slavegirl in charge had however the presence of mind to prepare an alternate, because it's like the Air Force down here.^vii So we go to the alternate, and you should have seen this thing!

About 1`500 sq ft worth of harlequin tile floors, bare walls (minus some rather dubious art hung here and there) and scarcely any furniture apart from a makeshift bar ten feet long and a few unvarnished, raw wood benches polished smooth by (hopefully) cute girlybutts. It let you pick among Fernet Branca, which still tastes like the donkey piss that it is ; Campari (the European thing), which sadly tasted just like Fernet Branca ; and cheap vodka (Smirnoff). Plenty of ice available, the drinks ~ 3.5 dollars per double shot^viii, the cover ~9 bux a head.

I kid you not, you'd have thought you died and went to Stonewall cca 1964.

About fifty or so people in attendance, and the weirdest demographics to boot. A few rather awkward, rather alone gentlemen in their 50s, dressed mostly for the office. Even more very awkward, very desperate young men, dressed mostly for the longshoremen strike. One guy, completely naked, not so well endowed, shunned for some incomprehensible reason by everyone.

A few fatties, tits out for the most part, the occasional nipple clamp. A few very girlish boobs and butts on display, garters and all, very carefully protected by as-invisible-as-possible-but-necessarily-present knickers.^ix One guy in his twenties, rather clueless, incredibly skinny, quite arrogant and very proud of his submissive girlfriend. He hit her imprecisely, rather randomly, quite painfully at times. She took it like a champ. Very well trained girl, about his age, I couldn't begin to imagine who exactly trained her. A few quite very competent other guys, warming slender, juvenile butts a grande arte. A few women beating up on some rather young, quiet, shy men. In general it's shocking how young, how willing and how dedicated the submissives showed themselves to be.

From conversations there I found out that the police closed down the Le Deviant place, a while back. Apparently they weren't making enough money to pay off the cops or something like that.

But anyway, that's been my night : sipping offensive liqueur and watching 19 year olds getting their buttocks all welted up. The social dynamic seems to be a core group of mostly young men and women that sort-of beat each other up collectively, maybe a coupla dozen or so of them, plus whatever else the cat drags in. While they obviously have their routines^x and the pernicious influence of US "BDSM as circus performance" shows itself to some degree, I was quite impressed by the utter ingenuity of the entire affair. You'd have thought they paid some models to "entertain", for the benefit of more paid cover charges, like they do up North. They had not. You'd have thought various for-profit entreprises run the whole thing. They do not. As best I could determine, pretty much everyone was there for something to do with the direct reason, rather than some sort of meta-consideration.

In short : I liked it very much, and will go again. Now if only I could somehow prevail upon these people to add foutons and loveseats, Mumm and Prahova Valley, gelateria and so forth. But... perhaps in time.

1. And speaking of contagion, ever read Anton Bacalbasa's Mos Teaca si Epizotia ? Mos Teaca is roughly the Romanian equivalent of the good soldier Švejk : he's a very dumb captain. Because while Czech folk identify with a resourceful and well intentioned but otherwise limited fellow put in demanding situations way past his abilities by a mostly insane authority structure, the Romanian folk identify with an utterly powerless yet baselessly arrogant rank-and-file member of said insane authority structure. От каждого по способностям. [↩]
2. Here's "Light a cigarette" :

   Cind de ochii tai adinci mi-e dor si-n noapte chem o raza din lumina lor de vis,
   Stele mici spre tine cind ma-ndeamna-n soapte si-s flamind de al iubirii paradis,

   Iau atunci si sorb cu sete o tigare, si in fumul ei ucid cumplitul dor,
   Si e a mea atuncea lumea asta mare, si de viata ma-mbat ca de alcool.

   Aprinde o tigare! Si-n fumul care zboara-n nori albastri ca un vis
   Cufunda-te-n visare si lasa gindului carare de abis!

   In fumul de tigare durerilor gaseste tainicul liman,
   Gaseste o noua zare si dorului alean in fumul de tigare ce se pierde-n val.

   Cind ajungi sa crezi ca viata-i o povara si dureri de neinteles te-apasa greu,
   Cind afara-i ciripit de primavara, iar in sufletul tau e toamna mereu,

   Infrateste-te cu fumul de tigare si te avinta pe aripa-i de mister,
   In regatul fara nume si hotare si colinde pe oceanul de eter.

   Aprinde o tigare! Si-n fumul care zboara-n nori albastri ca un vis
   Cufunda-te-n visare si lasa gindului carare de abis!

   In fumul de tigare durerilor gaseste tainicul liman,
   Gaseste o noua zare si dorului alean... in fumul de tigare ce se pierde-n val.

   or, in English (Here' a thought : you know you're part of a culturally productive group when at least a tenth of your time is spent translating from obscure languages for the benefit of the others, who don't really speak them, and theirs idem, for your benefit. If everyone has direct linguistic access to everything you're discussing you're a bunch of pointless hipsters with nary a clue.),

   When I miss the depths of your eyes and in the night I call for a ray of their dreamy light
   When tiny stars push me towards you in a whisper and I hunger for the paradise of love

   Then I suck down greedily a cigarette, and in its smoke I kill the horrid yearning
   And then mine's this whole big world and I'm drunk of life as of alcohol.

   Light up! And in the smoke that flows in blue clouds like a dream
   Sink into dreaming, and leave thought a trail to abyss!

   In cigarette smoke find secret end to pain
   Find a new horizon, and release from longing, in the cigarette smoke that disperses awave.

   When you come to think that life's a burden and incomprehensible pain crushes you,
   When outside spring chirps yet your inside's set to perma-autumn,

   Be a brother to the cigarette smoke and dare upon its wing of mystery
   In the kingdom without name or margin, sail away on the ocean of the ether.

   etc.

   Nice bit o' product placement huh ? [↩]

3. I've always been a guitar snob. What the fuck is this instrument made out of a violin for the benefit of barn animals and their labour hardened fingers.

   But I confess it's been growing on me the past month. I can hear that it does have the berth to be an instrument, a legitimate musical instrument rather than an ocarina. [↩]

4. The Romanian derps about some "senorita" that "appears" in "the park" (more likely he means "ulita mahalalei" but that's another matter) at dusk, and just how moonstruck the unwordly, pimply teenagers of the hood get. Replete with plenty of death references, because boyhood in smelly socks'd be nothing if it were not grandilocvent.

   The Spanish however goes like so :

   Blanca huella que, todos los dias, clavado en el yugo, me ves picanear;
   Compañera del largo camino las horas enteras te veo blanquear.

   Mientras que, bajo el peso del trigo, los ejes cansados los siento quejar,
   Yo, anudando mi pena a esa queja, con cantos y silbos te sé acompañar.

   ¡A la huella, huella, zaraza,
   Huella, huella, guay!

   Volverá la ingrata a su casa andará por áhi...
   Que si yo la viera, zaraza, la hablaré, velay...

   ¡A la huella, huella, zaraza,
   huella, huella, guay!

   Buey zaraza, tus ojos tristones mirando la huella parecen buscar
   El milagro de aquellos pasitos que al irse la ingrata no supo dejar.

   Compañero que, unido conmigo a un mismo destino, tenemos que andar,
   seguiremos rastreando la huella, la misma gue siempre la vemos blanquear.

   My English undertanding thereof :

   White footprint that, all of the days, locked in the yoke, see me pricking
   Companion on the wide road, for hours and hours I see you whitening.

   While, under the weight of the wheat, the tired eyes I can feel crying,
   I, adding my pain to this cry, with song and with whistle know to accompany.

   ¡Ah, footprint, footprint, Chintzy*
   Footprint, footprint damn!

   She'll return, the ungrateful, to her home, she will go away from here
   But if I see her, Chintzy... I'll talk to her, you'll see.

   Bai Zarazo**, your very sad eyes looking at the footprint seem to search for
   The miracle of those tiny steps that the ungrateful didn't know how to take with her.

   Companion that, united with me in the same one destiny we have to follow
   We shall continue tracking the footprint, the same that forever we shall see whitening.

   Apparently even poor ass drivers can fall in love. Moreover, their women, unlike ours, are bound stringently to the necessities of survival, and conservation excuses anything. Even leaving.

   ------
   * Chintzy's the ass' name. Platero was taken.
   ** No seriously, buey ?! It's Romanian, through and through. Or Scottish.
   [↩]

5. By the way, Buenos Aires is so well organised it's stupidly easy to never get lost. What you do is this : you pick two major streets that cross. Whatever's convenient for you, like for instance 9 de Jorje, which is a major thing with like 16 lanes so quite impossible to miss and say Corrientes, if your hotel happens to be nearby. Now anywhere you find yourself, and no matter how lost, you can always ask someone for directions to either of these. They'll typically say "X cuadras that way". (Because you pick major streets, and because you don't specify a cross or a number, they'll never go "x blocks this way and y blocks that way". Simple geometry.) Then you ask someone for directions to the other one, and follow the shorter path. Now you're on a major street you know, and no longer lost.

   Moreover, because they do numbering very sanely here, you have directionality. Just watch which way the street numbers are going, you'll get a pretty good idea of whether you're going towards your original cross or away from it. For that matter, just look at which side has even numbers, serves roughly the same purpose. Also, because each block has its own hundreds, you can rather trivially estimate distances : from 2150 to 1193 you can expect something under a kilometer of walking. [↩]

6. The thing has a dedicated roadway that goes up to the main entrance, and under which there's actually a door and windows - presumably for the doormen? [↩]
7. Incidentally, do you know who invented swinging in the US ? Pile of keys on table etc ? [↩]
8. They do the 50/100 thing here, not the 20 bs they do in the US. [↩]
9. Seen some cocks, but definitely not a single cunt there, outside of what I brought over. I wonder why ? What's the big deal, wouldn't you think this is the one place you don't take panties to ? [↩]
10. All the boys get beat on the back ; all the girls, on the butt. No soles were hurt in the making of this adventure. Everyone uses pretty much the same implements, exactly, pretty much everyone either has the same technique or no technique at all, stuff like that. [↩]