smokey week

smoke coming from the burning of country fields has been unbearable in buenos aires city. state of emergency has been declared and highways have been closed to traffic. red eyes, coughing, sore throats, high amounts of CO2 in the air, lack of visibility, smokey clothes, houses, cars...all caused by unscrupulous farm owners, unprevented by goverment

on tuesday and thursday i played at malba, as part of the bafici festival, accompanying "en el infierno del chaco", a stunning movie made around 1930 on the war between paraguay and bolivia. on tuesday I played with juan ravioli, on thursday alone

on wednesday I played at canal 7, alone since matias was sick, 2 movies by von stroheim. the first was too long for my capacities and preferences, the second brillant...a very exciting movie to play with. on this one I feel I contributed quite honorably.

on friday half of francisco bochaton's band was supposed to travel to villa maria...the roads were closed due to the smoke, so the buses were cancelled. things went back to almost normal at 14:15hs so I managed to ride on a bus...but the drummer couldn't make it...and matias continued to be sick...

on the bus I listened to miles' "big fun" and the rolling stones and read "parallels and paradoxes", coversations by daniel baremboin and edward said. I arrived at villa maria after a long ride around midnight; we played (drummerless and keyboardless) around 1:30am. a difficult gig...with hot moments. the bass amp (instead of guitar amp specified in the rider) assigned for me made it quite painful and hard

I slept 4 hours and got ready for our next ride to cordoba. slept a bit on the bus. listened to the mark knopfler/emmylou harris cd.

the gig in cordoba (at dorian gray discotheque) was very good although with accidents: the tension went down 3 times and the gig almost got cancelled. finally a generator was brought and the gig happened. the audience was very patient and enthusiastic, and the band delivered. my amp sounded great: a tronlite head with a decastro cabinet. superb. courtesy of a kind local guitarist named santos. overall the sound was very good.

2 hours sleep and ready for a 11 hours bus ride back to buenos aires

smoke cleared although strong smokey smell persists. listening at "anthology of american folk music" while typing in my garden

lucia cedron's new film is showing next month, with very good reviews...congratulations lucia!