Author Archives: Adrian Pardini

What nobody tells

Nobody tells this to people who are beginners, I wish someone told me.

All of us who do creative work, we get into it because we have good taste.

But there is this gap. For the first couple years you make stuff, it’s just not that good.

It’s trying to be good, it has potential, but it’s not. But your taste, the thing that got you into the game, is still killer.
And your taste is why your work disappoints you.

A lot of people never get past this phase, they quit.

Most people I know who do interesting, creative work went through years of this.
We know our work doesn’t have this special thing that we want it to have. We all go through this.

And if you are just starting out or you are still in this phase, you gotta know its normal and the most important thing you can do is do a lot of work. Put yourself on a deadline so that every week you will finish one story.

It is only by going through a volume of work that you will close that gap, and your work will be as good as your ambitions.

And I took longer to figure out how to do this than anyone I’ve ever met.

It’s gonna take awhile.
It’s normal to take awhile. You’ve just gotta fight your way through.

Ira Glass

Also, Andy Hunt used to say:

It is the artistry,
not the art.
It is the process,
not the product.
It is the journey,
not the destination.

The Road Not Taken

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,

And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I —
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Robert Frost

Last bike trip

This is my last week at Berisso before moving out. I finished a couple of chores and went out to enjoy it.

I biked along the terraplén as usual but instead of going directly to Palo Blanco I continued through Camino 3 de Abril, on some parts the canes and other plants go from side to side of the road, making a tunnel.

There are a couple of abandoned houses dating from the 20’s and even before that, some of them on sale:

After drifting for a while I went to Palo Blanco and had a couple of mates contemplating a lovely evening:

By the time I reached Avenida Montevideo again it was getting darker. Seems that everytime I’m around this part of the city I take the same pictures (October 2016):

Gosh how I’m going to miss this.

Night sight at Puente 3 de Abril

A proper rack.

For too many years our audio processors and studio link hanged on a wooden shelve that was at the brink of falling. It also had some wires screwed into the roof to stiffen it up a bit.

We managed to get a very good deal on a new rack and took that opportunity. I drove to Buenos Aires as the seller didn’t offer delivery, it barely fit on my car and I had both the rear hatch and a door held closed with rope.

The construction was mostly straightforward and it gave us a very professional look besides making our cable management a lot easier.

  • Comms rack at Futura
  • Comms rack at Futura
  • Comms rack at Futura
  • Comms rack at Futura
  • Comms rack at Futura

In the air tonight

There’s something that always mystifies me when I’m here at night and everybody’s gone.

All the movement of people gives turn to a very deep quietness and sounds otherwise ignored come to the foreground. I can focus on small details, how the light and shadows paint a different view of everyday places.

Larralde

Yesterday José Larralde came to Berisso.

I always wanted to see him live but all of his appearances were on hard to reach places.
He gifted us with a magnificent show of a bit less than four hours.

This year I did not attend to many shows but this was one of the bests.

Burning down the house

(Watch out)

So many drafts, some stories and pictures from the last PyCon at Bahía Blanca.

I was happily hacking on the kitchen the other Saturday when I hear a strange noise coming from the garden.

To my dismal surprise I see that the shed is on fire and part of the roof collapsed. I went in to take out a propane can to avoid an impending catastrophe and called the firemen (lucky us, they are a few blocks away).

We lost the roof, tools, vinyls and books on an adjacent room but nothing that can’t be replaced. Still fuck.

Some pictures of PyCon at flickr (not mine) https://www.flickr.com/photos/70871182@N04/sets/72157677377824525

Back to Berisso

After my visit to Las Flores Cemetery we resumed the journey. I dropped my new friend at San Miguel Del Monte with a handful of money so he could travel by bus instead of waiting for someone all night.

My original plan was to take route 215 straight to La Plata (after crossing Brandsen) but I did a bad turn and mistakenly took route 41 instead. I realized that when I arrived at General Belgrano.

I continued to route 29, watching wonderful landscapes. Among them people selling homemade jellies, cheese and cured meats (chorizos, salamis…). Finally, I arrived at Brandsen and this time I took the right turn towards La Plata. I did a quick stop at Lisandro Olmos to buy a couple of kilos of strawberries to eat on the last stretch.

When I entered home I rushed for a shower and slept for about 10 hours straight. What a rest.

Las Flores Cemetery

After visiting Sierra de La Ventana I headed to Las Flores. On the trip to Bahía I glanced at the Cemetery and made a note to come back some other time.

I took route 76 and then 3. Just a tad after the crossing with route 86 I picked up a guy that looked really beated. He lives on a recording studio in Buenos Aires (property of a friend) but is totally broke. A couple of times a year packs a sleeping bag and some other stuff and hitchhikes to General Lamadrid in order to see his daughter.

We chatted for a while but then he dropped and slept until we arrived at Las Flores. He didn’t like the idea of walking through the cemetery so I picked up the car keys and my backpack, leaving him with some food.

Of all the places I visited this is by far the most decadent. There’s a chapel by the entrance that looks like one of the few spots that had a bit of care.

In spite of that the architecture is impressive and evokes memories of a wealthy past.

I really like when the vegetation starts to take over buildings:

The day was perfect for walking, plenty of sun and a gentle breeze

Now comes the gruesome details. Some crypts were used as storage rooms (that’s actually quite common) but the masonry is almost at the point of collapse. Coffins open or out of place. Strangely enough, the ossuary was not locked. It also had a casserole among the bones. If you are in need of human remains to your anatomy lessons this place is perfect to gather supplies.

Sierra de la Ventana, Villa La Arcadia

After the visit to Saldungaray Cemetery I resumed my trip to Sierra de La Ventana.

I arrived to Sierra de la Ventana and it was almost deserted. I parked near Centro Cultural Sierra de la Ventana to eat a bit and then moved along at a slow pace to Villa La Arcadia, crossing again Arroyo Sauce Grande.

Near Avenida Circunvalación there’s an elevated set of tracks and a bridge that crosses the river.
I climbed and walked a bit over them.

Not very far from that there’s again the Sauce Grande. It was a very hot day, so I left most of my clothes in the car and went for a quick dive.
Most of the water level was below knee but near the bridge pillars it rose to about my neck. Despite other parts being so carefully tended there was a lot of trash here, both on land and among the rocks.

Walking back to the car I started to feel a tingling sensation on the foot. I reach for it and I discover a glass shard that punctured my (quite cheap) sandal and made a cut on me. Fuck.

I returned to the car with more curses and headed to Las Flores. The route was overly calm, just a faint breeze

Saldungaray Cemetery

Today I packed everything and slowly started my trip back to Berisso.

I wanted to visit Sierra de la Ventana and so I took Ruta 72 instead. Before arriving there one must cross Saldungaray.

It’s quite a nice town signed by the works of Francisco Salamone, an architect surrounded by mystery.

His buildings, mostly on an art decó style, seem very alien to the towns. Notwithstanding that, they are designed with extreme consideration to details.

Entering the town at the side of the route flows the Arroyo Sauce Grande, a nice stream of water. The grass was handsomely arranged and it had a great view of the cemetery gate.



The front gate of the cemetery is an amazing display of beauty:

The day was quite windy and it made opening and closing the door a task more difficult than it should.
After that there was a room packed with dark blue birds. When they saw me all but a couple flew away

The gate from behind is equally big, the whole cemetery looks so out of place being on a lonely patch of land

Except for a small set of places the grass was very well tended, with flowers and cacti too.

Despite being smaller I like this one more than the Cemetery of Bahía Blanca. Some of the mausoleums are gorgeous and other parts of the cemetery look like there were undisturbed from 1800s, specially the grave fences.

Walking on Bahía

After this morning excursion at the cemetery I returned to the hostel, had a quick lunch and worked for a couple of hours.

I then spent quite a bit of time walking inside the train station but it didn’t seem safe to be toying around with the camera there.
I drifted towards Avenida Alem, stopping at the Teatro Municipal for a while. I sneaked on the stage and watched a rehearsal.

Continuing on Alem I stopped at a bakery to grab some biscuits and ended up inside Casa de la Cultura (Universidad Nacional del Sur). There, Susana Cirille was inaugurating an exhibition of her marquetry work. Marquetry is the very fine and delicate art of using veneer to make pictures and Susana excels at that:

Universidad Nacional del Sur has a very colorful watertank:

On my way back to the hostel with a wonderful sunset I spotted some birds: