It´s (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas, Guzman the Merman, and Other Peruvian Christmas Classics

Faithful readers, in the spirit of the season, it´s time for our first annual Christmas sing-along. Or rather, since this isn´t a live performance and I´m not about to upload any videos of me squeaking my way through ¨Silent Night¨ or ¨Joy to the World¨, it´s time for our first annual Christmas sing-in-your-own-head as you read-along.  Only this isn´t your typical holiday special; it´s Christmas done south of the Equator.

I've talked before about how the inversion of seasons south of the Equator has messed up my psyche, and now that the holiday season is upon us, that claim couldn't be any truer.  While folks back home are bundling up in their warmest scarves and sweaters, I've spent my weekends at country clubs and beaches. While they´re browsing the local nurseries for the perfect pines, I´m growing fond of palm trees.

While the local supermarkets, casinos, and department stores have strung festive garlands over their edifices  and stocked their shelves with bearded, bundled Santas and hot chocolate, I just can´t seem to find the holiday spirit amidst the ocean fog and muggy weather. But perhaps my sentiments would better be demonstrated in musical form:

Guzman the Merman

Sing along

Guzman the mermaid is a fairy tale they say/He was made of sand but the betchy girls know/how he came to life one day. Oh! Guzman the merman was a jolly happy soul/with one bottle cap and one lime nipple/and all the rum his gills could hold…

It´s (Not) Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas

Sing along 

It´s (not) beginning to look a lot like Christmas/Ev´rywhere you go/Take a look at the sand, glistening once again/Beneath the Lima sunset all aglow…

O Palm Tree

Sing along

O palm tree, o palm tree/ much pleasure doth thou bring me.

Where´s The Snow? Where´s the Snow? Where´s the Snow?

Sing along

 

Oh the weather outside ´s delightful/but our beach burns are so frightful/To Chincha and back we go/Where´s the snow? Where´s the snow? Where´s the snow?

Mashup Finale: Up on Diego´s Beach House Rooftop/ We´re a Couple of Misfits/Deck the Halls

Sing along 1, 2, and 3.

Up on Diego´s beach house rooftop Jennie paused/Out jumped Josué Córdova/Down to the kitchen for chips and dogs/All for the little ones Christmas joys. Ho, ho, ho! Who wouldn´t go? Ho, ho, ho! Seriously: Who wouldn´t go? Up on the rooftop beer tops went click!/ Down through the gullets of all us misfits.

Ohhhhhhh! We´re a couple of misfits/ we´re a couple of misfits/ What´s the matter with misfits/ That´s where we fit in. We may be different from the rest/Who decides the test/Of what is really best?

Fast away the old year passes/fa la la la la la, la la la la/ Hail the new,ye lads and lasses/ fa la la la la, la la la la./ Sing we joyous all together/ fa la la la la, la la la la/ We rejoice for sunny weather/ fa la la la la, la la la la.

I´ll be home for Christmas. Expect more caroling. And next time, please, stay on pitch.

Jungle Bound

Friends, I´m happy to report that the decision has been made of where to spend my final vacation in Peru: as of this Sunday, I´m jungle bound.

The trip couldn´t be any better-timed.  Exactly two weeks ago—on November 11, 2011—the Amazon made the provincial list of the New7Wonders of Nature. While the results of this competition won´t officially be announced until early 2012, inclusion into the New7Wonders campaign could mean the beginning of a second tourist boom in Peru. The country´s economy is still riding high off the 2007 competition, which selected Machu Picchu as one of the new man-made wonders amongst the ranks of Chichen Itza (Mexico), the Taj Mahal (India), and the Great Wall of China.

My visit to the Amazon will be based in and around Iquitos, the largest city in the world only accessible by air or boat. But my tracks will only be making a minuscule dent in the Amazon´s density, which spreads an impressive seven million square kilometers and totals over half of the world´s existing rainforests.  Its vastness and diversity (containing 1 in every 5 living species) is incomprehensible.

So what´s on the itinerary? My wonderful roommate Maureen and I will see pink dolphins, jaguars, manatees, toucans, and mosquitoes (default). How will a girl who winces at the mere mention of snakes make it through the jungle unscathed? Well, that´s for another blog. 

In the meantime, I´m preparing for my jungle excursion the only way that makes sense: by listening to songs that make shameless and distasteful allusions to it:

Kool & The Gang/ Jungle Boogie

The Beach Boys/ In the Jungle (The Mighty Jungle)

The Troggs/ Wild Thing

Guns N´ Roses/ Welcome to the Jungle

The Rolling Stones/ Monkey Man

Emma Louise/ Jungle

Jay-Z and Kanye West / Welcome to the Jungle

Stay tuned.

Creamfields Wasteland: A Short Parable

Creamfields Perú, 2011: I could tell you about how my roommates and I prepared for the all-night electronic concert by sleeping all day, shoveling heaping forkfuls of pasta in our gullets and smuggling cereal bars into the remotest pockets of our purses.  I could tell you about how David Guetta got the party started with his Top 40 dance hits and spark-shooting robot aides. I could tell you about the performances of other main stage dance DJs—John Digweed, Laidback Luke, Afrojack.  But instead, I want to tell you a precautionary tale.

Entering Fundo Mamacona (the Creamfields venue) on Saturday night was like locating paradise for twenty-somethings along the Panamericana Sur highway: balmy air, well-manicured lawns, skyscraping palm trees and free cigarettes at the entranceway; stands selling beer, Red Pull, pizza and anticuchos (shish-kebab cow heart) to nourish the mobs throughout the night; tarps laid down in front of the staging areas to catch the fallen debris from careless, hungry/thirsty hands.

At first, the tarp ingenuity seemed to work.  When we stole away to the central open area from the bobbing sea of bodies after Guetta´s set, there was plenty of space to accommodate or group.  We sat cross-legged or stretched out on the grass, idyllically sipping on our beers, breathing in the springtime air, and listening to the pulsing music from afar.

But the harmony between man and nature did not last.  The more beers consumed, the more plastic cups disposed.  Garbage cans piled over.  With the constant movement, the tarps did not catch the debris as anticipated. All of the trash migrated to border between tarp and grass, creating junk fences for concert-goers to leap over on their travels to and from the staging area.

The mobs must have gotten hungry during the second and third sets, because the next time we went in search of green space, plates and personal pan pizza boxes littered the lawn. You had to kick the orphaned cardboards out of the way to make a suitable space to sit, while lying down lost its allure entirely.  When the sun came up again, there were no clean spaces in which to sit at all: bodies still rested, but they slept with plastic pillows.

Sure, sure, I know recklessness is the object of any all-night concert, and that teams of cleaning crews would be coming in the next day to restore the garden to its original pristine state; by the following nightfall, there´d be no traces of the Creamfields wasteland at all.  But where would be that garbage´s final destination, and who would be swooping in then to clean things up?

The Real World Lima Soundtrack: Now on Sale!

It´s everywhere. Each day on your walk to work, you pass Steven Tyler´s larger-than-life lips.  Your fine dining experience comes with a side of old-school Bon Jovi tunes, before he shaved his shaggy ´do and went country.  In the hippest bars and clubs, you tap your feet alongside twenty-something-year-old Peruvians to A-Ha and Pat Benetar.  You might have thought your teasing comb and cut-offs had reached their final resting place in a New Jersey junkyard years ago, but you thought wrong.  The ´80s epidemic has merely migrated south—to the Miraflores and Barranco districts of Lima, Peru. 

For the past three months, I have been conducting a hard-nosed investigation of this musical phenomenon.  The shocking truth? Foreign musical acts were once heavily taxed in Peru, triggering reluctance from big name ´80s, ´90s, and early millennium bands to make concert stops in Lima. Any Peruvian hoping to catch a whiff of aerosol hairspray had to travel outside the country to Argentina, Brazil, or (brace yourself) Chile, that skinny—but feisty—pisco-making rival to the south.  An entire generation of English-speaking, rock-music-loving Peruvians were robbed of genuine encounters with their favorite ´80s acts.  So they did the only thing they could do: they passed the unforgettable melodies onto the next generation, and they waited.

Flash forward to 2007.  The tax was lifted, opening the floodgate for ´80s musical icons to plant their leather boots on Peruvian terrain for the first time and revive (or maybe just perpetuate) the electric guitar fever.  Grumble as you may, you know you can´t resist bopping your head to at least one song on this playlist.  Go ahead and try:

1. queen & david bowie - under pressure (1981)
2. soft cell – tainted love (1981)
3. the smiths - there is a light that never goes out (1986)
4. depeche mode - personal jesus (1989)
5. the cure – just like heaven (1987)
6. depeche mode - just can't get enough (1982)
7. A-Ha – take on me (1985)
8. michael jackson – billie jean (1982)
9. michael jackson – beat it (1982)
10. dire straits - money for nothing (1984)
11. bon jovi – living on a prayer (1986)
12. guns n' roses - sweet child o' mine (1987)
13. aerosmith – janie´s got a gun (1989)
14. simple minds – don´t you forget about me (1985)
15. ac/dc – you shook me all night long  (1980)
16. INXS – need you tonight (1987)
17. the smiths - bigmouth strikes again (1985)
18. george michael – faith (1987)
19. new order – bizarre love triangle (1986)
20. dead or alive – you spin me round (like a record) (1984)
21. beastie boys – (you gotta) fight for your right (to party!) (1987)

Complete playlist available here.  Music brought to you by Daniel Noriega Reto, ´80s enthusiast.