A porteño morning

I woke up today to a very Valparaíso morning. Today is the first day of the Carnavales Culturales 2006, a several day event that the city puts on every year that brings together all kinds of literature, music, art, and cultural attractions for the general public, and showcases a specially-invited Latin American city (this year it's Panama City). Walking out of my apartment building, I noted the fact that yes, summer has officially come to South America, as I was blinded by a pupil-minimizing sheet of light and then struck by a heavy dose of hot, oceanic air. I walked down Avenida Brasil toward the Café del poeta which is nestled in a busy little plaza at the foot of Cerro Concepción. Under the impossible blueness that seems to always be there, sitting quietly and unassumingly above the streets, thousands of bustling porteños hurried this way and that, dodging rogue micros and colectivos, stepping over sleepy dogs who were nestled in little balls under shade-yeilding benches, passing by street performers playing flutes or singing Beatles songs with Chilean accents, weaving through resting tent parts being put together for the weeks' events, side-stepping transportation-workers as they chanted and heaved their strike signs outside one of the many governmental buildings representing the Fifth Region, brushing past hawkers and vendors and old men painting typical street scenes for lurking tourists, and, like always, licking ice cream cones that, with the cold and wet winter months now far back in everyone's memories, seem to make much more sense to me.

I ducked into the café with enough time to grab a table and order a soda before the place flooded with camera men intent on standing right in front of me to film the presenters, literary buffs, and probably more tourists than porteños. The local literary magazine Cavila showed a brief dvd presentation highlighting local authors as well as the premise of the publication. Later, the two founders spoke briefly about their own experiences and the latest issue of the magazine. It wasn't the most thrilling of presentations, but if you provide me with free literary magazines dotted with black and white photos of Valpo dogs, I'm content. And despite the relative lack of public speaking ability, the magazine is awesome and will work nicely as independent study material.

I lounged around for awhile after the last of the pamphlet-toting porteños left, and took in the coffee house atmosphere that I've been missing for the last several months. On my way out, I stumbled upon an outdoor painting exhibition in the middle of the plaza, undoubtedly part of the Carnaval. An enormous black sheet had been hung from metal poles, and large canvasses were hanging from, or propped against, the background. Several other on-lookers had gathered to look at the various paintings, of which my favorite (of course) was of a mangy street dog. As the cars and colectivos and micros rushed around us, the summer breeze pushed against the sheet, and all of a sudden all of the street-level canvasses that sat propped against it quietly fell flat on their faces against the cobbled plaza, nicely synchronized. Like a good Chilean, I made a distinctly audible throaty recognition, glanced nervously around me, and then walked away.

Walking back through Avenida Brasil on my way back home, I passed the same one-man Beatles cover-band, currently weeping gently over his guitar.