I had a wonderful weekend! Pretty busy, too. On Friday, Nestor had his last concert in the series that the Sarmiento Museum presented. It was his trio with him on the drums, of course, a man with the last name of Baraj on saxaphone, and Remus on bass. Baraj played tenor saxaphone, soprano saxaphone, and flute all at different points during the trio's hour and forty-five minute performance. And yes, I did get to play one song with them! Although he managed to surprise me with it.
Natalie and I arrived at the Museum and we saw Nestor on our way to the bathroom. One of the other audience member who had been there last week also passed, recognized me, and said hi. Then asked Nestor if he was going to let me play again this week. He shook his head and said that unfortuantely this week was much more of a definitive program (whereas last week was specifically called "Jam Session"-> Love the Spanglish- don't you?) and that he would unfortunately not be able to let me play. Oh well. So Natalie and I made our way to the bathroom, then back to our seats, figuring at least we'd come to see a great night of jazz. We were talking with some of the audience members, who of course loved that I came back. Such a welcoming reception as an American, I have never received. When I mentioned that I would be traveling to Mar del Plata with my soccer team, one of the women even inquired if I had a place to stay, as she had an apartment in Mar del Plata. Can you believe that?? Such hospitality.
Anyway, so the concert. In his introduction when he was recognizing people, and thanking everyone for coming out, he said, "And there's a drummer in the audience, here with us all the way from the United States. We had hoped to fit her in tonight, so we'll see what we can do." And of course, he asked me to stand up.
Then, during the intermission, someone reminded him that he always forgets to do the raffles he likes doing at each one of his concerts where he raffles off one of his CDs. So he picked up the microphone, looked straight at me, and said, "Is there a particular young American in the audience who would like to pick this raffle ticket for me?" So I came up and drew it. Then he said, "Jill, why don't you go accomodate yourself behind the set. Make yourself comfortable." At this point Baraj and Remus were still back stage, so he said, "Hey boys! Come on out here I've got a surprise for you. We're going to let this fine young lady sit in and play a song with us." So we played a blues! They let me solo, and Remus' mouth almost dropped to the floor. Hahaha. Although, I didn't think I played that well. The adrenaline kind of got to me. So that was Friday night.
Saturday started early. I got up at 6:15AM and was out of the house by 7:15. The Law School Admission Test started at 8:30 at the Instituto Cultural Argentino Norte Americano (ICANA) building in the center of town. It was my second time taking the LSAT, because the first I didn't do wondefully well. The test was four hours, starting from around 9:00, so I got out around 1:00PM. I left feeling much better about the test than the last time, and I get my score by e-mail in three or four weeks so we'll see what happens.
I went home and took a nap. At 6:00PM I went with Natalie to the house of Mario Trejo and his wife Maria Fernanda. Mario Trejo is 83 years old, he's an EXTREEEEMELY (all those e's are worth it) accomplished poet, journalist, playwrite and literary critic. He's interviewed some of the TOP figures in Latin American and world history (think: Che Guevara, Jorge Luis Borges, Salvador Allende, and Yassar Arafat), he's published mountains of works, and taught and lived all over the world. He's completely fluent in all 5 (yes, that's FIVE) romance languages, and is close friends with many of the huge names in jazz all over the world today. We met him last week at Nestor's concert, and he invited us over for coffee.
Mario is quite the character. He's half blind, but his hearing is exceptionally sharp. He's got a mind that is so many levels above my comprehension that it's almost comical. He started telling us about how important knowing one's ancestry was. He asked Natalie her ancenstry, and then that got him started talking about England and how much he loved it there. Then he was suddenly talking about the Romans, then quite suddenly about the Greeks, the Greeks some how brought him to democracy, which somehow led him to the Jews. Then, as if out of nowhere, he informed us that Trejo meant "to flee" in Greek (or Hebrew), and that he had strong Jewish ancestry. He asked us what we thought the difference between Liberty and Democracy was, which produced absolute crickets because I have never thought about something that profound in my life. Which led him to Latin American systems today and Chavez, and how the Kirchners were getting ever more similar to Chavez, and that somehow brought him to Colombia which led us right back to my ancestry. The man thought so fast I could hardly keep track.
Then his neighbors came for a visit. A 25 and 24 year old Dominican couple who is here in Buenos Aires to study. The guy is studying literature and the girl is studying cinema. The guy is evidently studying privately with Mario, and he brought over his newest collection of books, which Mario had read them all of course. I hadn't heard of any of the authors, of course. And of course I felt super ignorant when apparently some of them were American. They were really nice, but Mario kind of imposed on them to come over and it was a wee bit awkward.
So yes, that was coffee with Mario Trejo and Maria Fernanda. We were there for four hours. Mostly basking in complete awe of his genious but near the end he did open himself up to questions, if you will. Ha. So we got to ask him about some of his experiences. Mario is one of those people who, when they talk, they just emit this sense that you should not interrupt them. So yes, he talked for quite a while. He was so nice though. And when we excused ourselves (we tried to catch the subway home but were unsuccessful as the last ride is at 10:15 and we didn't get out til 10:25), he said he really hoped we had found this chat with him worthwhile and said that we shouldn't be strangers and come back.
This picture of him is from a loooong while ago. His wikipedia entry (that he wrote himself, typical Mario) has more on him for those who are interested. So that was my weekend. I'm doing work now. What a life I live here in Buenos Aires!
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