Wednesday, April 30, 2008

internet!

so, everyone, get excited. i will be getting internet in.....

the next 13 days. i repeat. 13. this is the kind of lovely timetable that chile offers you for pretty much everything. deliveries, internet, mail, etc. everything takes about two weeks. which is fine. i'm just glad i now have it! this is all thanks to my friend Claudia who plays second oboe. she allowed me to use her RUT number, which is their chilean id number, kind of the equivalent to our SS#s. regardless, you can't do anything in chile without a RUT, not even buy something online from a department store with a credit card. because first you have to make an account, with your RUT.

i've been thinking that the chileans would want to take advantage of all the foreigners here, but they seem content to just make it really frustrating instead.

thankfully, i should be getting my work visa and therefore my id, and therefore my RUT in less than 6 months. :-) in the meantime, however, claudia was generous enough to let me use hers.

so, you will most likely be hearing from me with more frequency in the next 13 days, when i'm wired. cheers.

Tuesday, April 29, 2008

autumn fruit

It is definitely now autumn, my most favorite season of the year.  People are reluctant to give into this one, playing games in the parks and strolling down the street even though now one needs a sweater and a hat.  Here in Santiago, the jugglers practice until they can no longer see, and lovers reluctantly head home from their nests on the park benches hours earlier than during the long summer days.  Cafés have closed their patios and the sting of warmth and smells of coffee and spice are bold as you open their doors.

I was gliding through the autumn air this evening, clutching my purse and bag of fruit.  It was dusk, and I had just caught the end of the market in Bellavista, called Vega, where fruit and vegetables are sold fresh daily.  I was pleased to discover a stand that sold the precious end of the season strawberries and raspberries.

I felt great pride as I crossed the river toward home, gazing at the outline of the churches and buildings against the darkening sky.  It reminded me of the important river views in my life - the view of Manhattan from the Q train as it crosses the river, the view of Notre Dame from the Seine - and now of Santiago.  Not the most romantic city, nor the most famous, but it has tremendous passion and care for the things that matter most.

This season, this city and I... we're going to be just fine.  It's becoming home.

Friday, April 25, 2008

protests

Yesterday on my way to Spanish class there was a massive protest that was becoming a bit dramatic and not so civil.

I had crossed the river into Bellavista and noticed there were hordes of people crossing at the next bridge, the carabinieros (police) were out in full force, though at the moment, everything seemed quite peaceful.

I began walking up the street towards language class and suddenly, these students which had been loitering around the corner (think teenagers) suddenly began screaming and shouting and running up the street, looking behind their shoulders as they passed me. Needless to say, I was a little nervous. I could hear sirens, but couldn't see anything and I didn't know why the kids were literally running away. (My favorite Spanish verb, by the way: huir: to run away, to escape.)

This continued the further I walked up the street, and I also noticed that the shops were closing their doors and pulling down the chain-link fence that stores use for extra protection. Fortunately, I met Piedad at this time, and she hurried me into our building, after refusing to hide of the kids.

It turns out the probably what began as a peaceful protest against the inequality between the public and private education system became less so. Often times, random people in the street will use the opportunity of a protest to take out their aggression against the Carabinieros by throwing rocks and such. Not that bright of an idea. Clearly, this has the result of the Carabinieros fighting back and I guess that's when the tear-gas was used.

Piedad and I were sitting in our room and both started sneezing and I had to blow my nose about 8 times because the tear-gas had infiltrated our room. Not pleasant. It eventually dispersed, but I definitely was rather nervous the rest the day, and especially as I walked back to my apartment. However, it fortunately had quieted down and didn't last much longer. Exciting!

One thing that it certainly highlighted was how easy it is to manipulate a crowd, and how difficult it is for people to think for themselves when other people around them are panicking. Granted, there were about a 100 kids running around me screaming, and though I didn't run, or scream, my heart started beating faster and I definitely felt the fear that was translated by their actions.

canciones de cebolla y Piedad del Solar y Language.

In Chile, they have an expression, ¡Que Cebolla!, which literally translated means "what onion!" They use this to refer to anything really cheesy, for example: Enrique Inglesias songs, romantic comedies, Titanic, really sappy comments, etc, but ONLY in Chile.

Chileans seem particularly thrilled that I know this phrase, as it says it all in only two words!

This is all due to my lovely Spanish teacher Piedad del Solar. Piedad is Chilena, bilingual, and I been taking classes only with her for about the past month. We have become friends, and have gone out on several occasions and are in the midst of a book swap. We have often hilarious times, especially because she corrects my spanish as we go along, so sometimes it takes a REALLY long time for me to complete a thought. (I have also shared her teaching skills with all the other gringos here, in the hopes that soon we can stop speaking English. She is now teaching three others.)

With her tutelage, though not in excellent use, I now have every single verb tense there is to have under my belt. About 14 tenses or so. This is VERY exciting to me because now I technically can say whatever I want, it's just going to be a matter of putting together the pieces.

*******

When learning a language, one learns much about oneself. For example, I realized that you can ask for pretty much anything with "Puedo tener," "Can I have?" which I use about a million times a day. Also, I found myself needing to have Piedad translate for me "I would, I could, I wish I could." Turns out I spend a lot of time speaking in the Condicional. I now know the condicional and am using it a lot. "I would like to have," instead of just "Can I have"; "I would go to the cinema, but I have other plans," etc etc. V Satisfying!

*******

Some informational nuggets about the Spanish language.

There are EIGHT past tenses, and only TWO future tenses. My previous teacher Alejandra explained that every language tells a lot about the culture. Therefore, the Spanish people spend a lot of time looking backwards, as they have different tenses for very specific different periods of time. Also, clearly, they're less inclined to think about change and such.

Whereas we Americans and English speaking people have a lot of ways to talk about the future, and it's all involved in the future as well. (Only one of the Spanish future tenses is actually about only the future - the other is talking about things in the future from a point in the present or past...)

Sunday, April 20, 2008

avocados...

...are in season here all year round.

more club de jazz...

the other night i went with zoe, james and ben to hear this trumpet player named Cuturrufo play. he's a pretty crazy good player, and his band was totally rockin' as well. i heard some of the best drumming i've ever heard. i wish i'd been able to catch his solo on video.

regardless, here is an excerpt of the opening trumpet solo at the bar where they played after the club de jazz. two gigs in one night - the second was much more on the funk side of things.

the video is pretty dark, b/c i just have a little baby camera, but you can hear the trumpet pretty well.

Flamenco



I've fallen in love with flamenco music. I went several weeks ago to a Flamenco restaurant in Bellavista with my friend Takeshi. Here is a picture and a short video of the woman dancing.

Construction Zone

Right now my apartment is a construction zone. It had been lovely and clean, albeit with some cracks in the walls and the ceiling crumbling a bit, but CLEAN. Now, Renan is fixing my apartment, and though he put newspaper down, I’ve never met a fixer who can also clean up after him/herself. There are lovely bits of plaster on my floor, on all my belongings, and on all the surfaces that Norma and I had spent hours cleaning. At least there’s nothing else to get dirty. The only things I have at the moment are a bed, bedside table, fridge, microwave and various kitchen items.

Oh! I finally got an office chair… You have no idea how difficult they are to find here in Santiago. Department stores do not sell them, only office furniture stores and this place called Sodimac Home Center, which is literally Home Depot en Español… Literally, down to the orange sign. A taste of home?

Norma

So, I have a confession. I have a Nanna, or, in English, a maid. I realize that I’m only 24 years old and that having a maid is a little bit on the excessive end of things, but it’s the culture here. Plus, I kind of inherited her when I got the apartment.

I came by the apartment to make sure that I was certain I wanted it, and Norma was here, cleaning. She had worked for the couple since they’d lived there and worked for the man’s family for years, so she is very trustworthy, does a good job, etc. Anyway, the woman, Brieta, asked me if I just wanted her to keep coming for me. For only $10,000 pesos a day, which is about $20. She comes for eight hours, cleans, cooks, goes to the store, washes dishes, irons, does laundry – you name it, Norma can do it. It’s remarkable.

Norma came this past Thursday to help me clean the apartment before I moved all of my belongings, so that I’d start off on the right foot. First thing, we go to the supermercado, because I clearly have NOTHING in the apartment, except some yoghurt, diet coke and a sponge. We buy cleaning supplies. Then, halfway through the supermercado, she asks me what I want to eat for lunch, and what kinds of things I like, so it turned into a grocery trip as well. When we returned, she put everything away and I went to rehearsal.

Later, I bought a vacuum and some other things on a list that she had given me, such as Tupperware, Ziploc bags, dish towels, etc. When I returned to the apartment, it smelled so fresh and so clean clean and then she began to vacuum. I felt like a princess.

Did I mention that she made me food and put it all in the fridge and that I haven’t had to cook the past two days because I’ve been eating this tasty brown rice/chicken/eggplant dish that she somehow made kind of like risotto?

I am so thankful for Norma. I don’t know if I’ll be coming back to the States…

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Music of India

Last night I went with the ladies plus James to hear Pedro, one of the Percussionists in the orchestra, play tabla at a concert of “Cuerdas de India,” strings of India. It all took place at the Yoga Center here in Santiago, a beautiful building with a fountain in the back and a rock garden and bamboo and skylights. There were four pieces, though the concert lasted close to 2 and a half hours. Pedro is a great tabla player, as far as I can ascertain, and he played two of the four pieces. In the last one, his hands were moving so quickly that I couldn’t tell which sounds were being made by which hand movements. It was a lot of fun, and they had cheap samosas and other tasty treats for sale, and we all sat on the floor and had to take our shoes off, etc. They had turned the lights off and had candles lit, and you could see the fountain and rock garden through the glass. They also had a couple of meditations written on the walls.

The lull of the third piece put me into a meditative-type sleep (long day) and it was actually really nice to be in the audience for some music, and also to be so connected with all the people there. Sitting on the floor in tight quarters is certainly different then sitting in chairs at a theatre. The room itself was not enormous, so the entire concert was very intimate. When it was over, I felt peaceful. The combination of drone, dancing tabla and repeated ostinato in the string instruments created an interesting outlet for me to kind of delve into the sound. Going to a bar after a concert like that would have been an intrusion on the experience, and I don’t think the juxtaposition would have worked at all. It was one of those rare moments for me when I felt completely satisfied and very content.

Club de Jazz

The next night, Saturday, after our first concert, Julia, Zoe, Carlos and I went with Ximena and Leonardo for dinner to a restaurant and then to the Club de Jazz in Santiago. Ximena’s brother plays jazz vibrophone and is pretty incredible. We all sit at this little table listening to jazz in the middle of Santiago. This Club is the most famous in Chile. Back in the day, Louis Armstrong played there, and so has Herbie Hancock… Any jazzers want to tour to Chile?

The building has high ceilings and wooden support beams and the jazz makes its way into every corner. Thankfully, the Club has banned smoking indoors, so it’s also a smoke-free haven to enjoy the different bands that play.

One of the bands that night was called “Lemon Pie Jazz,” www.lemonpiejazz.com. I laughed at their name.

Leonardo

I think my favorite person in the orchestra is Leonardo who plays second clarinet. He’s very soft-spoken, unassuming, laughs easily and seems very peaceful – as if he has some sort of secret that allows him to be so content. He’s Chilean, probably in his 50’s or early 60’s and I want him to be my buddy in a serious way.

It all started with the fact that he invited us over to his house in Nuñoa, (a neighborhood in Santiago) for a woodwind party. It turns out that in Chile, often times if you invite someone over for a party that starts before midnight you also feed them. Everyone was to give him the equivalent of $8 and bring a bottle of wine (about $4 will get you a good bottle of red, more on that later…)

Carlos, Julia, Zöe, Luke and I arrive in a cab to Leonardo’s house and are escorted past his large Shepherd-type dogs to his back patio, which is enormous compared to my hotel room, and has a beautiful tree, GRASS, lovely stonework and twinkle-lights hung in the branches. There are two tables set up and we don’t really know what to do, as Leonardo just kind of shows around and tells us to sit.

Enter Ximena, Leonardo’s wife. (Could be spelled with a J instead of an X… will get back to you on this one.) Ximena has got to be around the same age as Leo, and she used to be a dancer before she retired – think ballet… She has a huge laugh and big smile and has got to be the polar opposite of Leonardo. I soon find out that she has more energy than anyone I know and is always looking to have a great time and to make sure everyone else is as well. Perfect hostess.

She is completely delightful and makes us a round of Pisco Sours (Pisco is Chile’s national drink, honest!) As more people arrived, Leonardo gradually started speaking more, and I met the rest of the woodwind section that hadn’t been playing the Spanish concert, as well as a conductor names Santiago, who conducts a chamber orchestra in town.

An hour later, out comes paella - homemade, gigantic, everything in it paella. Chicken, chorizo, mussels, shrimp, squid, mushrooms, peppers, etc. The pan it was in was cast-iron and literally the same size as the top of a stove – MASSIVE. And she hadn’t cooked just one. She had cooked TWO. Incredible, and delicious to boot. And after paella, fresh fruit… HEAVEN!

The wine flowed, the tummies filled and then Ximena decided it was time for a dance party. The music got turned up and she danced salsa with Jorge (Principal Clarinet). Leonardo does not dance. Ever.

However, Ximena was incredible to watch and pretty soon, people were up and moving to the music, dancing under the Chilean night sky.

More Random Facts about Santiago

1. Mullets are shockingly popular, as is long hair on guys.

2. Heavy metal is HUGE. My first week here I saw tons of Iron Maiden shirts – turns out they had played the week before. I guess it helps to have long hair for head-banging.

3. Stray dogs are a huge issue. Except that no Chilean seems to think so. They’re kind of just around and chilling and doing their thing, ie, sleeping in the middle of the road, or peeing on the sidewalk or snoozing in the sun in the park. People feed them and they actually seem pretty content. None of them look that skinny, either. In fact, it’s the dogs WITH leashes and collars that seem kind of annoyed that they can’t just do whatever they want.
a. Julia and I ate at a restaurant outside of which hangs this middle-sized, kind of yellow, wiry dog. We were eating dinner on the patio in front when a man came up begging, and the dog went ballistic, as if to say “Don’t bother my customers, you’re on MY territory.” The man ended up kicking the dog (very sad) but he did go away, and the dog remained.
b. I was doing sit-ups in the park during a run, and after about number 89 or so, this dog came up to me to say hello. Gave me a little lick to say “how you doing? Just checking on you.” Very cute dog, actually, and then he gave me a couple more licks and I left. He seemed very content to stay at
the park.

4. There are stores specifically dedicated to one thing. Granted, we have department stores here as well, but my two favorite one-item stores are the optician and lamp stores. There must be an eyesight problem in Chile because in the Centro, there is literally at least one optician in EVERY SINGLE BLOCK. No joke. Also, there is one entire block that has only stores that sell lamps, lightbulbs, and lamp-related items. To compound the face that there are 8 (I counted) lamp stores RIGHT next to each other, they also seem to stock pretty much the exact same items. Confusing.

5. There is a national drink, called the Pisco Sour. Peru and Chile are forever fighting about which country actually created Pisco first, but regardless, it’s the national drink. Pisco is a clear liquor, somewhere in the white rum department, I believe, and is combined with sour mix and ends up being very frothy and a bit deadly as well. Turns out in Chile, when a liquor says, for example, 40 Proof, it’s actually 40%, and is therefore 80 Proof. Caution.

6. Wine is tasty and cheap, kind of like Italy, but, dare I say?, even better and even cheaper. I haven’t purchased any wine for more than 2,000 pesos, roughly $4.50, and every bottle has been great. Imagine what kind of wine you’d get if I spent the equivalent of how much I’d spend at home. Divine!

7. Cheese here is bad, at least at the grocery stores I’ve been to. I’m sure there’s a gourmet shop I haven’t discovered yet. However, if you buy Gruyere in the store, it doesn’t taste like the Gruyere in the States. It tastes kind of like bland Swiss. And they’re really into their semi-soft cheese here – Gouda, etc. So far I haven’t found a single Cheddar. They do have Brie and Camembert which tastes normal.

8. Everything imported is kind of expensive and everything that isn’t is not. For example, I’ll be buying a refrigerator soon, and the Chilean brand, Mademsa (sound like Medusa, anyone?) is by far the cheapest and also hasn’t been sent halfway across the world, thus also making it the most environmentally friendly!!!

9. They don’t recycle, except for glass, and they pick up trash EVERY SINGLE NIGHT in the center.

10. There are tons of Hamberías, kind of bizarre, fast-foodish places that sell Hamburgers, Hot Dogs and Fries but also Empanadas and other usual Chilean fare.

11. Cafes con Piernas are not quite as rampant as they used to be, but there’s still a good number of them in the center of town. “Café with legs” is the translation, and basically, it’s men only, and the topless women inside serve them coffee. These cafes have tinted windows, and it’s all a bit delightfully scandalous.

Ana Karenina...

We are now working on Ana Karenina, the ballet Tchaikovsky didn’t write. It was arranged by some Brit by the name of Guy Woolfenden (or something) for the Australian ballet back in the late 70’s. Now, in my opinion, this is foolish. If you want a ballet about Ana Karenina, just commission it. I suppose that considering they couldn’t commission it from Tchaikovsky himself because he’s been dead for a while, piecing the ballet together from his obscure works was the next best thing.

Our conductor du jour is Jose Luiz Dominguez, a Chilean who is blessedly clear, kind, and inviting for the musicians. Also, he can cue and keep the beat pattern. AMAZING. We had our dress rehearsal today, and Erika Zamora (sister to Maria Elena) plus one, as well as my Spanish teacher Piedad del Solar plus one were there to listen. I think it went over quite well, except for one thing…

Warning: if you are reading Ana Karenina and don’t want the ending spoiled, skip ahead. Well, this one thing is the coordination of the suicide train. It seems that this is the part rehearsed the most – Ana throwing herself in front of the train instead of just trying some couples therapy and some intense one-on-one counseling. Alas, had the plot been changed, we could just cut to a sofa and chair with a therapist saying “Now, how does it make you FEEL when your ex-husband because you left him for another man forbids you to see child?”

Alas, this is not the case, and instead, there is a massive black train with headlight backstage that is quite noisy and creaky, but not in a train way… this is in the “oh no, I hope the 2x4’s that we made the train out of don’t fall apart” way.

In the meantime, while we’re waiting for the train to rumble onstage, the orchestra is holding a tutti high F-sharrp, or some such note above the staff, and the violins are using as much vibrato as possible, and the fermata is obviously held to wait for the train, and it is much too long. Aside from this small technicality, *ahem*, everything else seems to be appropriate. Lots of lights made to look like falling snow, the Russian sleigh-bell, “yeah, it’s winter and probably also Christmas” bit, the waltz that sounds VERY similar to the sleeping beauty waltz but not as interesting, good ol’ Tchaikovsky drama, and a bit taken from his Suite #3 for orchestra, entitled “Polacca.”

All-in-all, a must see, even if it was pieced together by a guy named Guy.

first concert - SPANISH!

I made it! I finished my first professional concert… here is a short video of the hall the night of the first concert, a program of Spanish music. week!
The hall is always practically full. It’s not very large, but beautiful with quite good acoustics.

It was an interesting week, to say the least. There were some disagreements between myself and the conductor, and the age-old question of what to do when that happens. Considering it was my first week, I ultimately did what he wanted, though it was completely contradictory to what the composer had written. I think line-crossing occurred. However, we came to an understanding that resulted in a compromise for both, and I think it ended up being a quite successful concert, with both parties more or less pleased. But what a way to start my first