"Voluntary Exiles"
by Joel Bowman
“Men who dreamed, and then realized their dreams. Men filled with wonder,
with longing, with ecstasy. Sailing straight for the unknown, finding it, realizing it...”
~ Henry Miller, from "The Air-Conditioned Nightmare" (1945)
Buenos Aires, Argentina - "We’ve enjoyed the good fortune of late to dine with a few of your fellow readers. Over juicy steaks and ample malbec, we exchanged stories and compared Notes, trying to make sense of the world around us. From democracy on the run in Brazil… to riots in France, Germany, and Italy… to the political shenanigans in the U.S. of A… it’s not easy to put the world to right in a single dinner. Still, one must try…
Usually when when meet up with readers, the question arises: Why Argentina? It’s a fair question. After all, dear wifey was born in Norway and grew up between the US and UK. Your editor hails from Australia’s golden shores. And between us, we’ve lived in at least a dozen other countries, besides…Today, we share with you a few thoughts about our adopted home, for what they’re worth…
For the aspiring voluntary exile, the first question one ponders when settling into life in a “foreign” country is, “Why here?” The obvious corollary – why not there? – is seldom far behind. After all, to our compatriots, Argentina must appear just as counterintuitive as, say, Albania... or Algeria... or Angola... to say nothing of the rest of the alphabet. Why the Paris of the South, then, and not the Buenos Aires of the North? One has to be somewhere, of course. But why anywhere in particular? We are by no means the first itinerant head-scratcher to ponder the “geographical conundrum.”
When the American author, Henry Miller, moved to Paris in the 1930s, he was already 40 years old. Miller said he made the move so that he could regain a “life of dignity.” Compared to his hometown of New York City, la Ville Lumière was (at that time) cheap and afforded the artist a kind of freedom that had somehow eluded him back home. Miller spent a decade in the French capital, during which time he wrote prolifically and enjoyed la bonne vie. When he eventually returned to the States, he penned “The Air-conditioned Nightmare,” an account of his impression of life in a country he could no longer understand or appreciate. To him, it seemed sterile and pointless. Absurd, even.
Wrote Miller of his experience: "In a few months I was down south at the home of an old friend. I spent a good part of the Summer there, then returned to New York. My father was still alive. I visited him regularly at his home in Brooklyn, talked about the old days in New York (the ‘80s and 90’s), met the neighbors, listened to the radio (always that damned “Information Please!”), discussed the nature of the prostate gland, the peculiarities of the bladder, the New Deal which was still new to me and rather goofy and meaningless. “That Roosevelt!” I can hear the neighbors saying, as if they were saying “That Hitler!”
A great change had come over America, no doubt about that. There were greater ones coming, I felt certain. We were only witnessing the prelude to something unimaginable. Everything was cock-eyed, and getting more so. Maybe we would end up on all fours, gibbering like baboons. Something disastrous was in store - everybody felt it. Yes, America had changed. The lack of resilience, the feeling of hopelessness, the resignation, the skepticism, the defeatism - I could scarcely believe my ears at first. And over it all that fatuous veneer of optimism - only now decidedly cracked.
What Miller perhaps recognized was a “system” of which he was no longer a part. Abroad, he was liberated from the norms and expectations of mere existence at home. Shifting status symbols... arbitrary social standards... pointless political posturing... the proverbial rat race; all that belonged to another world, baggage on a train he had long since alighted. For Miller, it was not simply the dark and foreboding future he perceived but, as Henry Thoreau put it a century and a half earlier, the way by which “most men tend to lead lives of quiet desperation and go to the grave with the song still in them.”
Old World Charm: Each man will define a “life of dignity” after his own fashion and, with a stroke of good fortune and a little imagination, discover a place where he can pursue his own happiness. Here in Buenos Aires, we have found such a place... at least, for now. Sure, until recently the politics were a complete mess and the economy was mostly in the doldrums… (Although, as regular readers know, that’s all in flux, even as we type these words to you this very morning.)
Still, there’s plenty more to life than the ongoing disaster of the public realm. In fact, one might argue it’s the private realm that really matters in the here and now. Part of this city’s charm, at least to us, lies in the “backwardness” of the place. There are no televisions blaring out in restaurants. No smartphone screens at the kitchen table. And nobody goes to dinner before 9pm (tourists excepted). Indeed, it is not uncommon to see a young family enter a restaurant at 10 or 11 o’clock on a “school night.”
On which point, families almost always dine together. Big families, too. Italian style. With lots of gesticulations and enthusiastic crosstalk. In most places, there is no such thing as a “kids menu.” Children eat what their parents eat. No “ifs, ands or buts,” as our own mother used to say to her own kids.
When in the many parks and plazas that perforate the city, all children know that, if they are lost, they need only find and inform the closest adult who, knowing the drill, places the child on their shoulders and claps loudly. Surrounding adults then do the same until, in concentric circles, the commotion emanates until the relevant parent realizes they are missing a kiddo. No Child Protective Services necessary. Just honest, reliable community.
Besides all that, there is a designated “friends day,” which the Argentines take very seriously. Amigos call each other, with unreserved affection, “gordo” (fatty), “loco” (crazy) and “pela” (baldy). Nobody gets “offended” or whines about it. Men embrace one another heartily, offering a kiss on the cheek, then dance the dark and brooding tango with the prettiest lady in the room.
An older, worthier generation still wears hats. And ties on a Sunday. Adults still read physical books in cafes. Often big, thick tomes, with nary a vampire or wizard to be found among the dog-eared pages. (Why, just yesterday we spotted a young man in a cafe near Plaza Vicente Lopez, reading a volume of Cicero’s works. Hope for the future, indeed.) The term “woke” is simply something you did before you got out of bed and, as Oscar Wilde once proclaimed, a gentleman seldom goes to sleep on the same day he woke up."
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