An antidote to Bill Gates? I taught an Argentinean during the Falklands. He was a very cultivated fellow who left his Red Poncho with black trim with me as a parting gift. I have it next to my Sandinista Mask from the brother of another student who ran the National Library in Nicaragua. Both brothers are children of culture and affluence who tried to rebuild what Samoza had destroyed.
Well, here's the answer to Milton Friedman and the current English ax on the only English identity that seems worthwhile. Constant chatter is no substitute for poetry of music. Ann Boleyn was one of the favorites on my reservation when it came to poems about life and love. It seems that the spirit of poor Ann has revived and the English culture is now her surrogate. Better we should listen to the Argentineans, the Venezuelans and the Costa Ricans. Or maybe the great Scandinavian cultural programs. Their orchestras regularly come to New York and blow the critics away. And then there is Anna Netrebko and the Russians. Damn! REH Books venerated in a land where culture is everything Argentines have a different understanding of government's obligations By Andrew Cohen, FreelanceAugust 12, 2010 To call El Ateneo Grand Splendid a bookstore is to call St. Peter's Basilica a church; it does not begin to describe its breathtaking, celestial beauty. This emporium of books began life in 1919 as a theatre, with a deep stage, a brocaded curtain and a painted dome (with its allegory of peace) designed by an Italian artist, Italians having built much of this elegant capital. For decades the Grand Splendid featured silent film, orchestral music, ballet and of course, the tango, the soul of Argentina. Since 2000, it has been a bookstore, the largest in Latin America. This is a temple of books, a literary shrine, a cathedral of curiosity. Some 3,000 people come here every day to browse, read and buy. You find them reading in every corner of the place, curled up under the cornices, sipping an espresso in the cafe (which was once the stage) or lounging in the blood-red velvet boxes where patrons once watched performances. The performance today is books, and books alone, playing every day and night to a loyal, rapturous audience. Forget the Internet and online book sales. Forget Amazon and Indigo. Forget e-books. They are here, but they have not yet breached the citadel of Buenos Aires, what may be the world's last refuge of books, the kind made of paper and ink. This is a city in love with books. There are said to be more bookstores in Buenos Aires than in Brazil, a country of 190 million (compared with 42 million in Argentina). In some neighbourhoods, there are more bookshops than in all of Santiago in neighbouring Chile. Booksellers claim there is one bookstore for every 6,000 residents of Buenos Aires. Books matter here, which is why there are so many of such variety. Bookselling is "a true profession," they argue, which isn't to say that it is a hugely profitable one, or a safe one. Help comes from the state. By law, books are sold at the same price everywhere in the country -- Germany follows a similar practice -- which means that independent bookstores are not undercut by the big-box retailers. Booksellers also benefit from tax breaks. Why is this so? Books have been part of life here since Argentina became independent in 1810. Two of the founding fathers -- Jose de San Martin and Manuel Belgrano -- donated books from their own collections to found the national library, just as Thomas Jefferson donated much of his collection to the Library of Congress after it had been burned by the British in the War of 1812. Both Belgrano and San Martin thought books, and the ideas they germinated, were central to the survival and success of the new republic. In the 20th century, the generals would think the opposite: among their assaults on democracy, they would ban and burn books, arrest authors and close presses. Books, though, are just one example of the extraordinary commitment to culture in Buenos Aires. It holds a literary festival here every year, one of many festivals celebrating theatre, dance, music and film. Its annual international book fair draws a million visitors. In a city of 13 million struggling to get by, it spends three per cent of its budget on culture. The sidewalks are heaving and the subway stations are crumbling, but there is money, by God, for free tickets to the Tango! It is about civic priority. Argentina has not recovered from its economic collapse of 10 years ago, when it defaulted on its debt and deflated its currency, but the show must go on. "If you don't invest in culture, you go home," Hernan Lombardi, the minister of culture, says of governments that ignore this deeply human need. "In a crisis, we worry about losing identity. That's when we need to support culture." So the city finds the money to run 10 museums, while the national government maintains even more, with minimal admission. Some are minimal, some are often closed, some are under renovation. There is money to restore the spectacular Colon Theatre and support for sophisticated free guidebooks to the city's pizzerias, ice-cream parlours as well as bookstores. And subsidies to keep tickets to the performing arts affordable, especially for young people, whom Lombardi says will walk rather than take the bus to afford a play. Cut culture? Not here. The reverence for culture represents a different way of looking at life, a different understanding (like public transit) of the obligations of governments to citizens. It is a common attitude in Europe but largely foreign in North America. Lombardi -- a man of humour and warmth who sweetens his conversation with classical references -- will take that message, and more broadly, one celebrating the charms of Buenos Aires, when he visits Canada this autumn. We should listen. Andrew Cohen is president of the Historica-Dominion Institute. These views are his own. C Copyright (c) The Edmonton Journal _______________________________________________ Futurework mailing list [email protected] https://lists.uwaterloo.ca/mailman/listinfo/futurework
