Category: Little Epiphanies

Carmen Mesa, Bailaora (in a still from the video “9 Vidas” by Macarena Zorraquín & Juampi Correa) Listen: Carmen, lying on the floor where the sunlight is streaming in from the north-facing window, looks up from her book and stares out the window. There is a flower in her hair, one she picked from a…

“David” – Mural by Jorge Rodriguez-Gerada en San Telmo, Buenos Aires. Listen to audio: I have two ways of seeing this city, each a faithful expression of my own shifting nature. Sometimes she is the purest expression of repose, like water running beside a riverbank. Other times, she is a cauldron of bubbles and fumes…

Listen: One morning, before going to school — I guess I needed the silence of mornings back then too — I started drawing on a large pad made for such a purpose. The paper was thick and slightly rough so that the graphite would come off the pencil and stick to the surface. I drew…

Blink first, you lose (Photo by KCF, Buenos Aires, 2023) Listen: I went on a date the other night, an artist date.  Anyone familiar with Julia Cameron’s “The Artist’s Way” (and if you are an artist of any ilk, aspiring or otherwise, you should be) knows the concept of the artist date: “The Artist Date,”…

Knife sharpener, Buenos Aires, 1870. Source: Archivo General de la Nación Argentina Listen to the story: Bonus: Two afiladores announcing their services, Buenos Aires, 2023: I have my own pantheon of local gods. At the center stands the sage taxi driver. Then comes the vegetable stand proprietor, the fellow at the newspaper kiosk, the street…

Listen here: My strongest and favorite memories from my adolescence were of my solo adventures exploring San Francisco. Not much else stands out from that time. I did all the ordinary dreary things: I went to school, I played sports (badly), I had a few frustrating dates. But what jumps out in memory was the…

Listen: Sometimes as I am walking home late at night, I scent her fragrance. No matter the exhaustion of all that has come before, no matter the exhaustion of all that is to come, these things mean exactly nothing when I feel her near. She waits, no doubt, for moments such as these: summer nights.…

Listen to “Hotel York” here: What I like best about the Hotel York is its sign. Faded, over-sized and garish, it is a sign that tells a nuanced story. It is most definitely a sign worth crossing the street for. Which, of course, I did. I had set out for a walk, alone but for…

Listen here: This is a re-vamped, expanded version of an article I originally wrote for the Buenos Aires Herald in 2001. It makes me a bit wistful. I’m generally forgiving about technological change and modernization and try my best to embrace it but I truly miss those old buses, the colectivos, of Buenos Aires. Sadly,…