The Materialist's Last Buenos Aires Post (and not a second too soon, according to some)

Catalogue the magalog

We have the Japanese to thank for many things, some of them unqualifiedly good (e.g., sushi), some of them not (karaoke), and most of them arguably neither one nor the other (Hello Kitty, Dance Dance Revolution). Falling into this third category is the savior of print periodicals, the shopping magazine, also known as the magalog. The magalog (see: Lucky and the defunct Cargo, Shop Etc., and Vitals), for those of you too busy reading The New York Review of Books (and yet somehow faithful readers of the Materialist's), is exactly what it sounds like, a part-catalog hybrid with page after page of pictures of things to buy and slender but informative text on where to buy them. It is, really, the medium boiled down to its essence: a vehicle for unbridled capitalism. What could be more honest?

Retreat in Buenos Aires

Costa Petit in Buenos Aires

One of the best things about travel is finding something you didn't expect, whether it's a church or a store or a park or a tiny alleyway or, in this case, a hotel (hey, this is the Materialist, not the Spiritualist, after all).

The Materialist is well aware that the above is hardly a revelation, but for some reason, it's easy to forget--it must be, or every surprise wouldn't awake a sense of such giddiness, such simple happiness, in its discoverer.

Over the course of her trips, the Materialist has been lucky enough to stay at a number of places she'd be too cheap to stay at otherwise, wholly because of the largesse of her colleague, Lisa Gill, who oversees the magazine's annual Hot List. The Hot List, which appears in the May issue, is a long, never-ending, and apparently hellish project that requires Lisa (or LG Electronics, as the Materialist calls her, in recognition of her Korean heritage) to dispatch some 25 stringers to, this year, several hundred hotels, resorts, B&Bs, and inns in 67 countries. That list is winnowed down once, then again, until what remains is a selection of the best hotels in every price bracket that have opened in this year. Because, as the Materialist has stated before, CNT doesn't accept any discounts or freebies--including media rates--it means that every single hotel that's checked out is paid for, in full, by the magazine. The Materialist doesn't know how much LG Electronic's budget is per year for Hot List, and nor is she quite brave enough to find out--the Materialist has a weak heart and is afraid of passing out in LG Electronics' office.

White Magic

Impressario Alan Faena surveys his domain
Photo:  Lisa Limer/Conde Nast Traveler

"So, tomorrow is your meeting with Alan Faena," said Astrid over dinner. "11 a.m. sharp. Meet me in front of the hotel and I'll take you over to the offices."

"Is there anything I should know?" asked the Materialist.

"Well," said Astrid, sounding doubtful. "You should try to appear...chic." The Materialist was wearing a black taffeta A-line skirt she'd gotten on sale at Banana Republic and a T-shirt whose neckhole she'd customized in an attempt to look louche and devil-may-care but which, when lifted from the context of her private fantasies, instead looked like what it was--an $18 American Apparel men's shirt that a sartorially presumptuous editor had taken to with a pair of scissors stolen from the supply closet at work.

Late again (Buenos Aires, Part 2)

 
Brasserie Petanque 
Photo: Pascal Meyer

"Sheet," said Astrid. It was 10:45pm and the Materialist and Breeze had yet to leave their room to meet her for their scheduled 9 o'clock dinner. Through the window of the top floor of their duplex, the Materialist could see their concierge standing on Av. Figueroa Alcorta, the busy thoroughfare that runs through Palermo, trying fecklessly to flag down a taxi. He had been out there for the past hour, and every few minutes, the Materialist would watch him rub his palms on his thighs, his face sweaty and sad. Meanwhile, Astrid was waiting in the restaurant.

"I know," moaned the Materialist, who hates being late and yet chronically is. By 9:30, she had zoomed through the emotional stages of the persistently tardy--nonchalance, panic, guilt, resignation, renewed panic, and helplessness--only to hunker down in despair. She had been looking forward to meeting Astrid, whose name made the Materialist think of a starry-eyed, ringletted, rosy-cheeked blonde, and yet whose voice made her think of someone dark-haired and long-lashed and luscious, with a curl of cigarette smoke feathering her every exhalation. "But the concierge says there aren't any cabs because it's the fifth anniversary of the crisis"--the country's financial crisis, that is, the one that had turned Buenos Aires, overnight, from a solid middle-class capitol to an impoverished city in financial freefall.

In which the Materialist nearly has a nervous breakdown (Buenos Aires, part 1)

Photo: The Cocker

No matter how well and how far in advance the Materialist plans, something always seems to go wrong before she leaves on a trip. Sometimes it's something banal--a flutter of panic at work over a lost file that results in an "urgent" phone call, inevitably minutes before the Materialist goes to meet the car for the airport--but sometimes it's dramatic and queeny, with lots of weeping and emotional breakdowns (not the Materialist's, of course).

The Materialist's dozens of loyal readers may notice that she has a tendency towards rigidity. This is not true of the Materialist's friends, most of whom are big messes, given to tears and tantrums and, on the opposite end of the spectrum, exuberant generosity and exhibits of affectionate excess. Naturally, the Materialist, who is a rather dull and stolid sort, enjoys and even envies the exploits of her unstable and extravagant friends, and being the regal and infuriatingly calm voice on the other end of the wire.

Nobody's business but the Turks' (Istanbul, Part 3)

"Take a raincoat," said Esin, the day before the Materialist's departure. "October is rainy in Istanbul. And chilly. In fact, it'll probably be pretty bleak." She sounded and looked quite cheerful at the prospect, as if the gloominess the Materialist would inevitably encounter while on vacation would be somehow a fulfillment of all of her hometown's best worst qualities.

The Materialist, who very much likes and respects Esin, nevertheless took this with a grain of salt. Esin is, after all, a photo editor at a travel magazine, and Turkish, and is therefore given to both pessimism (especially about the weather) and hyper-preparedness, though the Materialist will leave her readers to decide which part of her identity is responsible for which attribute.

She decided to leave the raincoat behind.