Puppetry, Place Of Pixies, Pick-Pocketed
Trip Start
Sep 29, 2007
1
80
221
Trip End
Ongoing
Buenos Aires, San Telmo,
Argentina
Sunday, February 17, 2008
One notable store was a store called ¨El Rincon De Los Duendes¨ that a passer-by translated to me as ¨Place Of Pixies¨, this was the store for us. The store was filled with pixies and fairies made from various materials doing all kinds of happy and fun activities. They had lots of Brian Froud (The Labyrinth and Dark Crystal films) type objects. and I bought some pixie-inspired music which is merry ditties with pan flutes and magical whistles, Celtic style really.
The main square where the flea market happens has shady trees and outdoor tables
pixies
. The main things for sale were tango memorabilia, leather goods, antique silver, brass, jewellery, crystal and turn of the 20th century Argentine and European curios. We were astounded to see a ´Duck On Bike´ replica in one of the stores, oh the memories. If i were to choose one object to purchase for the day, it would have been a gorgeous, winking, sitting jester figurine who was the centrepiece in the window of one of the ritziest antique stores. I thought the snooty, goatee-sporting, beret-ed antique dealer was going to charge me for sneaking a look at it. Bands were set up in the street busking, one even had a full sized piano on the side walk We watched some tango dancers dance on a wooden board set up in front of a singer, guitarist and accordion player and i was able to record the sounds on my ipod. There were various street performers of excellent quality. Some of the ones we liked best were the people painted as statues, a man scratching around and making noises like a chicken, a contact juggler, old school clown trio painted with black and white faces, man dancing tango with a mannequin and a hip hop band with an assistant using a goblin puppet. The goblin guy was very good and seemed to have the same character as his puppet, a grand choice. * Men At Work ¨Downunder¨ just started playing in ¨Cyber World¨ (it´s really called this and is an air-conditioned dungeon where you they play eighties music, you can smoke and eat and they bring you real coffee. If i start getting manic you´ll know why) where i am sitting and i think i´m going to have a tear. I miss the family, cooking and i miss driving my kombi.*
The act of the day goes to a classic puppeteer dressed in derelict shoes, red socks, black pants, pinstripe shirt with red braces. His 30cm high puppet was dressed the same as him and was in the character of a drunk. The show took place inside a brown vintage suitcase with a street backdrop including lampposts and old red postbox propped up against the open lid of his case
sign for the pixie shop
. The story was a sad one and followed one night in the puppet´s desperate life as a drunk and ultimately showed his death. We dropped some pesos into his hat and I bravo-ed the puppeteer at the end and kissed his cheek, a terrific show of the dying art of original puppetry. My photo of the day was achieved here too when i snapped the puppeteer´s old shoes with red socks and toes poking out the ends standing on the cobbled street with the puppet and strings dangling near the shoes. Love it. Down the end of Defensa Street, the travelling jewellery artists and local folk with bric-a-brac roll out their rugs and sell. After wandering through this section we discovered that Nadine´s bag that was across her chest and over her shoulder, had been opened and pick-pocketed from behind. We think they got away with about 500 pesos ($US170) which is a fortune in Argentina. Buggers!San Telmo has turn-of-the-century Italian town houses, cobbled streets and Spanish style mansions filled with antiques from all over the world. It was BA´s first suburb, inhabited by sailors and fishermen then wealthy Spaniards who abandoned it with the yellow fever outbreak in the late 1800´s. The mansions they left were then occupied by immigrants. Thanks to government subsidies and urban renewal plans, the worn sidewalks and crumbling structures have been transformed into quaint streets. We ate lunch at the old-fashioned Bar Plaza Dorrego on Defensa Street to a soundtrack of crackly tango tunes on vinyl. Politely aloof waiters set the scene and there was good sandwiches there. While having lunch we spotted a gorgeous young man dressed in a chef outfit pulling along a washing basket on wheels full of fresh breads and empanadas and shouting out to sell his goodies, very ST.
inside the lair
We had a very late dinner at ´Lezama´ in San Telmo. We had sweetbreads without knowing what they were and still don´t, we are too scared to find out. A very traditional restaurant. We were seated next to the chief of Argentina´s equivalent of the FBI. The chief´s children spoke some English (they have money for lessons) so they practiced their English and helped us order our dinner. We bought the kids some ice-cream at the end of the evening. People will keep their children out for dinner with them till the early hours of the morning in BA, it´s the norm.
