Today I read the
next fifty pages of Manuel Vázquez Montalbán’s The Buenos Aires Quintet. Although the search for Raúl continues to
feature in the novel, it is by no means Montalbán’s exclusive focus because he
is interested in constructing a much larger canvas of Argentine life in which
absurdity and cruelty are combined in equal measure. Take, for example, the
characters of Robinson and Man Friday, who are a former member of the oligarchy
and his chauffeur who have converted themselves into caricatures of Defoe’s
characters while preaching universal equality. Although Montalbán plays their
antics up to highlight their comedy on one level, the fact that Robinson is
blackmailing his former allies among the rich and powerful leads to his speedy
and brutal execution. It’s almost as if Montalbán encourages one to laugh only
to have the laugh die in one’s throat. Another interesting aspect of the novel
is Carvalho’s decision to form a private detective agency in the style of a
Marlowesque 1940s gumshoe. Although this decision is initially prompted by
necessity (Carvalho needs funds) and with a strong sense of its absurdity, the
agency actually seems to work and to be successful. This suggests, perhaps,
that several different temporalities coexist in contemporary Argentina, so that
modern police work, the old-fashioned private eye, and the machinery of state
violence can all coexist in the same space.
I also read the next
fifty pages of Alexander Cockburn’s A
Colossal Wreck: A Road Trip Through Political Scandal, Corruption, and American
Culture. In the context of discussing the arc of Christopher Hitchens’
career and whether he should be described as a contrarian, Cockburn makes the
following interesting observation: “if the word [contrarian] is to have any
muscle, it surely must imply the expression of dangerous opinions.” I had not
previously thought of ‘contrarian’ as a complimentary term in this sense, but
Cockburn both convinces me that it is and persuades me that, like Hitchens, he
is not truly a contrarian. In other words, Cockburn objects to what we might
expect him to object to (Obama, the treatment of Bradley Manning, etc.) and approves
of what we might expect him to approve of (the Arab Spring, the Occupy movement,
etc.) but at those moments when he seems to hold contrarian views (global
warming is hogwash, the right to bear arms should be protected) those ideas are
merely vaguely naughty from a leftist perspective rather than dangerous. It’s
ironic that he criticizes Hitchens for always wanting to be an insider as I
think Cockburn had the same yearning to belong. Granted, this need expressed
itself in very different ways in Hitchens and Cockburn but they do share an
intriguing similarity from this perspective, namely, their decision to become
American citizens late in life.
I also watched The Field, a documentary
about rap and violence in Chicago. I didn’t know much about the music scene in
Chicago until watching this film, and it helped me not only get a better understanding
of ‘drill music’ but also to understand the lived reality of the headlines about ‘Chiraq’
being the murder capital of the US. In many ways, there is a lot of continuity
between this iteration of gangsta rap and the version that came out of LA in
the later 1980s and early 1990s, but what complicates the situation in Chicago even further (as explained at the beginning of the film) is that the destruction of public
housing in the city in the early 2000s distributed gang members across the poor
areas of the south and east sides of the city in such a way that members of
rival gangs could be living right next to each other. Talk about a recipe for
disaster! The one thing I would have liked to hear a lot more about is the
contribution of female rappers to the Chicago hip-hop scene. Even so, this is still
a must-see for anyone interested in rap music, black American pop culture, and
why violence remains such an ingrained part of urban American life.
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