I have been feeling almost unbearably cooped-up.

We have been spending a lot of time at home and in cafes, on a seemingly constant loop of writing, eating and sleeping in too late.

In reality I like the private, quiet hours of the early morning; I rarely fall asleep before 3 or 4 a.m.

No surprise then that I’m used to waking up at noon. But like most apartments in insomniac Buenos Aires, ours is set up to efficiently block out the morning (after) sun. When the heavy curtains are drawn, it renders everything a comfortable shade of pre-dawn grey. A color that strongly suggests you pull the covers up higher and drift back into cozy sleep. Until 2 p.m., at least…

And so it has gone.

In related news, July 4th just so happened to coincide with el Oso’s submission of the first half of his current manuscript to our editor (said manuscript being the driving factor behind said current hermitage), so after we finally rolled out of bed mid-afternoon we went out to celebrate. And by celebrate I mean get drunk. We indulged (and someday soon we will discuss their provoleta) at Arguibel, which is one of my favorite places in Las Cañitas. Or anywhere, really.

We feasted, we drank, we didn’t get to bed until after 5.

Yet somehow, we ended up waking up the next day more or less refreshed.

AT 8 A.M.

How such a thing is possible, I know not.

Once the paracetamol kicked in, I braved opening the curtains, and was amply rewarded. One of the first real days off we’ve taken in a couple of months, and it was absolutely gorgeous - unseasonably warm; low breezy 80’s. Sun was shining. A walk-to-the-museum day, for sure.

We decided to go the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, since I hadn’t yet been.

One of my geekier traits is a deep and abiding love/borderline fetish for museums. I feel more at home inside museums than anywhere else on earth. Even the crappy city museums with three rooms in a communist-era building on the local college campus. You know, the type with the attached planetarium that smells strongly of pee? Yeah. I even love those.

But Bellas Artes is pretty, and smells just fine.

They are running an exhibition called Peppermint Candy, which focuses on contemporary Korean art. The photography was fascinating.

My other favorite gallery was a collection of Pre-Columbian Art.

Food for thought: Just how did human culture get from this:

to this:

so quickly? Pre-Columbian Art didn’t die off until the sixteenth century.

There are so many levels of complexity, global nuance and technology separating those styles, and so little time…

And here’s an ass.

What else can I say? Perfect day, in the most Lou Reed-ish way possible.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 8th, 2008 at 12:34 am and is filed under Argentina, Buenos Aires, Museums, South America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.