Libertad

I changed my mind. I´m not ready to go home after all. I had a great afternoon & I´m back in the ´don´t let this life end´frame of mind.

I was wrong about La Malba yesterday. It wasn´t a film actress that shut the place down - the were screening a film about an activist who challenged the dictatorship, and the right-wing had threatened to bomb the museum. They´re going to screen the film tonight regardless. Freedom is not just another word here.

Hollis spent most of the day in bed; I spent it at the museum. I went for Frieda Kahlo (Still Life with Monkey and Parrot), but stayed for the hundreds of other artists whom I had never heard of. It was all 20th C Latin American art, and it was more dynamic and exciting than any modern art that I´ve seen before. There was also film - they were screening silent films from the 1920´s and 1930´s in one room - and music, from Kurt Weil to Ravel, taken from the museum´s founders collections. I wasn´t alone; it was a beautiful sunny day yet the Malba was full of young people. I was one of the older patrons, and I loved being in a place were art was actively relevant. It was fantastic.

The street fair was in full swing when I got back. They took all the tables out of my square (like that? One week and it´s already "my square") and it´s full of antiques dealers and the queens that love them. The side streets are full of musicians, including half a dozen barefoot and scruffy tango orchestras. It´s a great day, and it´s too bad it has to end, but it´s time for me to pack.