Gilly Day

(November 13, 1964 – June 2, 2007)

Tomorrow begins Zappadan

She's in love with the boy from the rodeo
Who pulls the
rope
on the chute
when they let those suckers gooooooooo!

Happy Mothers' Day Argentina!

(foto by Mrs. Y. Mike)

We're back from the campo in time to spend Mothers' Day at my cuñado's quinta. If it surprises you that we Buenos Aires types celebrate the day in October ...well, it's spring down here. It might also surprise yanqui types that Moms' Day in the US originated as a call to unite women against war.

The splendid foto above by my missus shows the delightful addition to our menagerie that appeared on her mother's birthday just 10 days ago: "Milagros", our new yeguita.

The little foal is of the "gateado" coloring and is strangely rangely. I think that you can see that her legs are already almost as long as her mother's. She almost looks like a giraffe!

Tobiana, her mom, is a first timer ...but she's got all the earmarks of a pro. I've never seen any mother, anywhere, of any species so attentive and nurturing. She keeps her new daughter a bit apart from the rest and is constantly nudging and caressing her and communicating with her the strange new world and its ways. Friday night's sudden rain and thunder and lightening was impressive even by ol' timer standards ...and the little filly's first. She stood snuggled next to her mama who kept the brunt of the downpour from her.

Wishing all mommies, new and old, a lovely day,
Mike

Buenos Aires Nat'l Wildlife Refuge Panders to Angloparlantes!

I don't know about you... but I think the US Fish and Wildlife Service has OVERSTEPPED IT'S BOUNDS! What is the US Government doing laying claim to Buenos Aires wildlife???

Día del Escudo National

Tomorrow is the day of the national seal.

There it is. You've seen it. Whether you're a tourist or ex-pat or an immigrant it's stamped all over your paperwork.

The basics: It's a blanco y celeste ellipse with two outstretched clasped right hands in the bottom part that are holding up a spear that is topped off by a red stocking cap and surrounded by two laurel branches that cross and are tied at the bottom with a bow of ribbon in those same national colors. On top of everything is a golden rising sun with 21 rays that alternate between flames and points.

Cool... but what's up with that brim, Jim? You know, that santaclaus lookin' thing.

Maybe you've seen it here... or here... or here.

That might not surprise you... but what about this ...or this?

That's the gorro frigio or Phrygian cap. Better known in yanquilandia as the liberty cap or in France as le bonne rouge, a great old symbol from the enlightenment of which the Argentine founders were members.

It dates back to ancient Greece where slaves celebrated receiving their liberty by wearing it.

One place you won't see, though, is on the statue at the top of the US Capitol dome... even though the architect designed it that way.

It seems a malcontented Senator named Jefferson Davis objected to its association with slaves... or so he said.

Feliz Día del Escultor

¡And that means escultora, tambien! And since Thursday is the International Day of the Woman... that means Lola Mora, the acclaimed Argentine sculptor that produced the above piece that you have no doubt seen in Costanera Sur.

Very pretty! And so was Lola... in a lacy sort of 19th century way, or ANY kind of way for that matter.

And scandalous. She had great connections, tho. Wiki says that she was the protegé of Julio A. Roca whom we know from our favorite billete. That probably got her the choice (original) site for the above pictured "Fuente de las Nereidas" in front of the old Palace Hotel at the corner of Cangallo (now Perón) and Pasco de Julio (now Leandro N. Alem), now the home of the University of Buenos Aires language lab for foreigners! Maybe you know it. If you don't... and you're interested in great lessons in Castellano, as an alum, I recommend it highly.

Too scandalous to keep it there, however. Not only did the blue-haired ladies of the time object to her frolicking nudes...she worked on the piece... get this... WHILE WEARING PANTS!

Anyway, it's a great day to go to the Costanera Sur, chomp a choripán, and hoist a cold beer in honor of la escultora and the sculpture itself.

If you don't make it today... or tomorrow... Thursday's holiday is a perfect occasion as well.

150 years of Almirante Brown

UPDATE: http://www.westernpeople.ie/news/story.asp?j=35792
UPDATE:http://www.mayoadvertiser.com/index.php?aid=1155

Let us turn our thoughts tomorrow to Downtown Willie Brown... whose fine likeness stands upon a tall base of pink granite at Leandro N. Alem y Cangallo (It's always fun to tell a tachero calle Cangallo instead of calle Perón!) The river actually came up to the monument back in the day.

The Admiral is my favorite Argentine hero and one of my very favorite heroes of all time from anywhere.

Irish, veteran officer of the Royal British Navy, rarely sober, smuggler/ pirate/ buccanner/ privateer/ freebooter/ filibustero (depending on who you ask), and the undisputed Father of the Argentine Navy who never lost a battle and died still in the service of his nation 150 years ago.

He was a Mayoman (from County Mayo) who arrived in capital of the US (then Philadelphia) with his family at the age of 9. Their "sponsor" in Philly died of yellow fever soon thereafter...and only a few days later Willie's father dropped dead from the same disease. His provenance is even in dispute as he may have been the son of his uncle, an Irish priest; in fact, he took his mother surname rather than Gannon (his father's name.)

Destitute and fatherless, they say that "One morning while wandering along the banks of the Delaware River, he met the captain of a ship then moored in port. The captain enquired if he wanted employment and Brown answered yes. The captain then and there engaged him as a cabin boy, thereby setting him on the naval promotion ladder, where he worked his way to the captaincy of a merchant vessel."

He spent 10 years as a merchant seaman until he was "shanghai'd" into the British Navy. This was a common fate for US sailors at the time and a casus bellus for the "War of 1812." He fought Napoleon on the high seas until he was captured by the French. He escaped and ended up in England, via Germany, and quit military service... some say he deserted but it's a matter of opinion because tradition held that a man could not be forced into the Navy twice.

Back in England he married and split for South America the same year. He set himself up as a business man in Montevideo.

As I would have expected, the siren's song soon returned to Brown and he ended up part owner in a ship and he began to "trade" between Buenos Aires and Montevideo. Given the year, about 1810, this sort of "trade" would either have been considered contraband or was some of the first legal trade allowed by the newly minted Viceroy of the River Plate. In any case, his good ship Eliza ran aground and sank. Brown got his goods off, sold them, then crossed the Andes to buy a ship of his own: a schooner named "Industría" which he sailed back around the horn and started the first "regular sailing-packet service" in South America...again between BsAs and Uruguay.

Good times... apparently a profitable venture for the ol' seadog. That is until the Spanish got the idea that they'd inadvertently left some money on the table in this deal. The Viceroyalty blew Brownie's new schooner out of the water.

Pissed-off to no end, Brown presented himself to the President of the fledgling nation of Argentina, Posadas, and offered his services. He was appointed Commander in Chief of the Argentine Fleet.

Except that there was no fleet.

I've heard a lot of stories about the "fleet" that Brown was presented with. All the stories say that it was small and in bad condition. I love the story that says that one of the ships even sank before Brown could take delivery. Most say that the boats were conversions to warcraft and/or warships that were beyond their better days.

No matter, literally within hours the almirante flamante was out there pickin' a fight with the Españoles.

The Spanish shot his flagship out from under him but he still got hold of "The Gibraltar of the Rio de la Plata": the island of Martín Garcia. The Spanish fleet lit-out for Montevideo. Brown, having picked up 3 new ships after his first victory, chased them hard and close.

He ended up crushing the Spanish Fleet in Montevideo harbor but not before getting his leg broken by an enemy cannonball. He shouted out battle orders from a stretcher on deck, during which he captured 3 Spanish ships. That was it for Spain down in this neck of the pond.

He got promoted to commander of the entire navy... and, as a token of gratitude, he got to keep his shot-up old flagship as his very own... truth be told, baby-Argentina really didn't have much to give away as prizes.

From then, he never really stopped.

He stomped Brazil with a navy 1/3 their size.

He smashed Uruguay but showed his nobility toward his foe by ordering his men to allow his opposing commander, Giuseppe Garibaldi (later, the founder of the modern Italian state) to escape. He told his men, "Let him go, boys. That gringo is a brave man."

The Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the British all fell before him.

He was lord of the Mar Argentino. So much so that legend has it that when the Argentine dictator Rosas, his boss...everybody's boss, came aboard Brown's flagship for a big din-din, Brown seated himself at the head of the table. When the protocol types reminded him that El Supremo was the top dog, Brown said in his still bad Spanish that “whatever Don Juan Manuel de Rosas might be on land, he, William Brown, was master of his vessels and would sit at the master’s place.”

After things settled down in these waters, he found time to head back to the ol' sod for a visit with his daughter. During the height of the potato famine he gave money for relief and the establishment of the eventual Irish State.

The idea of standing armies and navies, on this side of the pond, were looked upon dimly back then. The US founders hated the whole idea (Hence our 2nd amendment...right to bear arms OR standing armies, not both.) Thus, most soldiers and sailors got furloughed after a war.

But not our Brown. He remained commander until his death and felt pretty good about his legacy.

In the Boca neighborhood here, you can see the Casa Amarilla...but it's only a replica. His original villa was in the neighborhood of Barracas.

As an old man, he received a visitor to his villa: the Admiral Grenfell, his opponent in the Brazilian war. Grenfell started to bitch about how the República Argentina didn't seem to give a damn about the old fighters that midwifed her. Brown told him, "Mr Grenfell, it does not burden me to have been useful to the mother country of my children; I consider the honours and the wealth superfluous when six feet of earth are enough to rest so many difficulties and pains."

If you find yourself strolling through Recoleta cemetary, you can see his simple sea-green column that marks the grave.

On March 3, 1857 he died and was buried with full military honors. The Argentine government issued a communiqué stating that "with a life of permanent service to the national wars that our motherland has fought since its independence, William Brown symbolized the naval glory of the Argentine Republic".

During his burial, the former General, President Bartolomé Mitre famously said:

“If some day, new dangers threaten the shores of our Argentine fatherland and we should find ourselves obliged to confide to our floating timbers the banners of May, the conquering breath of the old admiral will swell our sails, his ghost will grab our helm in the midst of the tempest and his warlike figure will be seen to stand on the top deck of our ships guiding us through the thick of the cannon smoke and the din of the grappling shouts.

Brown in his lifetime, standing on the quarterdeck of his ship, was worth a fleet to us".

Many many great thanks to:
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/William_Brown_%28admiral%29
http://www.irlandeses.org/geraghty040406.htm
http://local.mobhaile.ie/admiralbrownp/AdmiralBrownsLife/tabid/9879/Default.aspx
http://www.browniano.com.ar/altebrown/index.htm
http://www.irlandeses.org/blackfrigate.htm
http://www.deburcararebooks.com/admiral.htm

Feliz Día del Transporte

Tough day to celebrate the national day of motor transport.

You might want to check out the city's various webcams before you go out.

(Art Frahm/#17 mashup in honor of
Jeff Barry's new series: On the Bus in Buenos Aires!)

Happy Xmas