Tag Archives: chile
batallas
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guerra civil chilena del 1891 (revolucion de 1891) congress and the navy revolt against president balmaceda and the army. congress wins, and balmaceda commits suicide. vicealmirante jorge montt assumes power.
batalla de concon. aconcagua river. luis fernando rojas. 1904. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Batalla_de_Concon.JPG
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steve maccurry and the afghan girl (npr audio).
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dream. june 27/28-2015. z swarm.
we live in a white house by the sea. from the window i see a bay like that of gohyon. flags line the waterfront. the sky turns golden as dusk begins. i hear the warning sirens go off on the warships anchored at the mouth of the bay. i tell my dad we need to buy bottled water in case the taps go dry. i feel we should board up the windows too but he doesn’t think it’s necessary. i go outside. it’s peaceful and many people have gathered quietly on the road next to the ocean. they seem to be waiting for something exciting, beautiful or terrifying like an eclipse or the end of the world. the sky turns purple and blue but there are clouds to the west that remain bright. the lights are out in every house. i’m told the flags will change soon. i look at the white navy destroyers assembled at the edge of the bay and they look deserted and lifeless. i go home to wait. there are no lights on inside my house. my dad chops garlic in the dark with his back to me. his head is bowed so low he appears decapitated. the window blinds are shut but some blue light filters from the bottom of the window frame. then i hear the window glass crack as if a bird had kamikazed it. more things start crashing outside and cracking the windows. the cracking of the glass is followed by the fluttering of scaly wings and things trying to get in. little mutalisk break through the glass and rip through the blinds. some of them get tangled on the blinds and drop on the floor and crawl toward us using their wings.
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나는 은행에 갔다. 나는 아이스아메리카노를 마셨다. 나는 학원에서 일했다. 나는 강변에서 자전거를 탔다. 나는 책을 읽었다.
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juguetes de madera mineros
los andes to santiago on a bike
i wake up not particularly in the mood for a long bike ride. the only bike available had a diy basket attached to the handlebar. i shut up and get on the bike and leave my dad’s house. i head west on arturo prat.
i turn south on calle larga.
i reach the tunnel of chacabuco in the late morning. near a fruit market i discover a shortcut.
it’s polite to say permiso before entering someone’s house, or when you have to squeeze through barbwire while trespassing. i find an abandoned mud house.
i push my bike through a small forest. near the enjoy casino on donkey kong mountain i find a gypsy cart.
some pots and pans. shoes. a tea kettle.
donkey kong mountain
i bike up the cuesta de chacabuco.
i came here once with an old school friend named geronimo. his dad brought a gun and they spent a half an hour shooting at cans with an automatic pistol.
at kilometro doce, i meet spongedick squarepants.
i bike down the last easy ride of the day. 
i pass the place where the decisive battle of chacabuco was fought and won by army of the andes.
the old marker stands forgotten. grapevines cover the old battleground. my mom would later look at the picture and remember seeing the marker as a young girl on her way to the mountains. most people skip the cuesta and take the tunnel, passing by a newer, more he-man marker erected in the 80s.
capilla de chacabuco.
i eat snacks at a copec. gummy bears, gatorade, hot dog. essentials. where there’s food y buena voluntad, the quiltros are never far.
i continue biking south on the autopista de los libertadores but i worry that i will be pulled over by carabineros. i decide to cut to another, less traveled highway. i get off the autopista before reaching colina.
i smell burning rubber. a dump truck appears screeching from around the corner, white-bluish smoke billowing from one of its tires. it comes to a stop near a vulcanizadora. its blinkers on.
i travel west down quilapilun road shaded by alamos. behind the alamos, the idyllic fields and dusty hills lies el tranque de las tortolas, an embalse relave of toxic, azure waters only seen by birds, descending planes and google. i reach the western highway and realize it’s perhaps even more dangerous and narrower than the one i just avoided. up ahead i see the hill of polpaico near a big cement factory.
i merge into ruta cinco and bike up the hill. the road is lined with dessicated, mummified dogs and general roadkill. at the top of the hill i expect to see santiago or at least the cerro de renca but when i get there the land stretches far into the distance, disappearing behind a curtain of murky, ominous smog.
i enter the industrial parks in the environs of santiago. long distance transantiago buses appear.
i stop by the first quiosco in conchali and drink a bottle of soda and eat a super 8 chocolate bar. the tv is on and the german team is about to play against brazil for the semifinals of the fifa 2014 world cup.
i get to an avenue called baron de juras reales- the kind of name that made santiago a magical and mythical city to me as a kid. santiago is full of sweet, strange names drawn from ancient spanish treasure maps.
i bike up avenida dorsal. i cut towards cerro san crisbal, which looks tiny and enveloped by the brownish, sticky smog of the late afternoon.
i arrive in recoleta. i travel up old streets, ‘dangerous’ streets. i walk and bike. my ass hurts. there’s a fat man with a mustache smiling outside a corner store. he’s got a funny secret to tell the world.
escuchaste lo de brasil weon? cuatro goles. cuatro a cero. lo estan cagando rico estos alemanes.
he’s got glee in his eyes. ten days ago brazil kicked chile out of the world cup. i doubt anybody can contain their joy as brazil is annihilated on its own soil.
recoleta is old and charming. i notice a few mansions built with a french flair long ago in some golden age. most buildings here have been left in disrepair for decades. graffiti crawls up the walls like ivy. i pass el cementerio general. then at cerro blanco i look through a gate and see a bullet. i may indeed be entering the rough side of town.
a few minutes later the street is wet. long, white banners hang from rejas de colegio.
a guanaco is peacefully idling on the street. riot police are talking shop in a parking lot nearby. i’m late for whatever party they just had.
the neighborhood turns into patronato. i pass arab shops and start seeing the hangul and the bbq restaurants of the korean immigrants. the sun is about to set as i enter the bohemian barrio bellavista. as a kid i would imagine myself in my early 20s coming here and carreteando with art students.
the sun sets by the time i cross el mapocho for the first time. i follow el parque forestal keeping el cerro manquehue ahead.
i cross the mapocho again. i pass my grandpa’s house. i meet a highway and i’m forced to backtrack and cross the river for the last time. i enter a neighborhood with a sweet mapudungun name- tabancura. i keep pushing on until finally reaching avenida las condes. i walk up, following the silent mapocho to lo barnechea and home. by the time i park my bike is 8 or 9 and brazil has had a couple hours to sulk over their defeat.
el drugo
gato pescador
a cat rests near the fish market in the bay of zapallar, chile. the cat’s nictitating membrane, a third pair of eyelids, visible. agosto 2014.
two door cinema club / do you want it all
el chulo
el chulo.
chile | early 2008
cerberus
dream
I speak to old classmates. We talk about my upcoming bday. I show them a slideshow of photos from a long train trip.
Now we’re on a train. We pass a cemetery. I point it out.
The main gate of the cemetery sticks out from the forest like the doors to Jurassic Park.
Behind the cemetery a city of blue and dark blue skyscrapers.
I say “El Cementerio General.” Of what city? Santiago? There are houses near the entrance. The houses are walled with white adobe like a huaso pobre’s hacienda.The walls stand shoulder high. There’s a tall ancient oak tree with roots clawing the ground like a mangrove. We see four figures loitering outside the closed hacienda’s gate. They have long, thick necks and mullets. They’re anthropomorphic hyenas.
A few of us get off the train and approach the creatures for a quick picture. The place is humid like June in Ithaca. The hyenas appear to be small men dressed in costumes, walking on two legs and grumbling. They scramble away through a hole under the hacienda’s gate. Rising from behind the wall, two columns painted with red, green and yellow Buddhist motifs. The columns hold a Korean temple-style roof. The hyenas stick their head out from a gap on the wooden gate. The three or four heads seem to belong to one body like the guardian dog of Hades.
Before we can get close to the hyenas we’re intercepted by two nuns with black veils and habits. As they approach us, an arrow flies in front of the older nun. We look up and see four or five metalhead youths on the second floor of an a-frame house. Their terrace extends to the branches of the oak tree. The teens have long black hair and lounge about on sofas and bean sacks. Some sport black iron maiden tshirts and ripped jeans. The mother nuns reprimands them. She turns to us. She’s ancient, small and fierce. The nun looks at the first one of us. She says to him “Ud. es perfecto.” and touches his arm. To the next guy she says, “Ud. esta gordito. Mire, su polera le queda chica.” The guy’s belly bulges and sags over his waist como un saco de harina blanca. I’m nervous. I don’t want to be made fun of. She looks at me and says “Necesita un poco mas de trabajo”. Then moves onto the last guy. To him she says “Esta muy flaco.” I wake up.
gustave dore via wikipedia
el manquehue
agosto 13 2014
subimos el manquehue en santiago.
Cruzamos uno de los barrios mas ricos de chile. Un camino que serpentea por mansiones de industrialistas y gerentes y consules.
Elementos de un eucalipto.
Llegamos a un campo en la cima del barrio. Lo cruzamos y subimos la montana.
La cima
Nos dicen: cuidado con La Piramide. Uno de los sectores mas pobres de Santiago. al otro lado de la montana.
Encontramos un amigo.
Bajando por el camino nos sigue un amigo.
los mineros del oro
My dad and I traveled around Colorado during two summers. We tried our luck as gold miners in the river. We explored abandoned mines and ghost towns. This is the video of that time. Part documentary, part family chronicle. Part 1. In Spanish and English with Spanish subtitles. There’s drinking. There’s playing with dirt by the river. There’s driving a white van (yes, kidnapper-style) up and down the Rockies. And there’s the people we met. Some part historian, others part miner, many part character from a different era.
Trailer:
Some of what we found: