Valparaiso, Chile

Went to visit Pablo Neruda´s house only to find that Pablo Neruda no longer lives there. Apparently, he´s dead.

This may have worked out in my favor, however, because I´m not sure the living, breathing incarnation of the Nobel-honored poet would have invited me in and let me go through his stuff the way it turns out I was able to. Photographs were strictly forbidden, and though my secret plot to sneak a shot of his fourth-floor writing desk at the changing of the security guards during lunchbreak was foiled, I did manage to smuggle out a photograph of his third-floor bar.

I walked past a metalworking shop today where four Chileans were rocking out to "It´s So Easy" under the sultry gazes of three dozen naked women pinned to the wall.

They still say Pinochet´s too caved in the brain to stand trial for disappearing half the population of his country during his reign. What a sham.

Finished the Che biography, and though he turns out to be a character I could never really get behind (Heavy suppression of the free press, compulsory executions for *all* post-revolution political dissidents, insistance that armed conflict is the *only* way to effect political change, etc.) there are too many Clint Eastwood anecdotes about his superhuman dedication to a cause he truly believed in for me to resist admiring, to some degree, certain aspects of his life.

I should say, however, that if any knee-jerk lefties out there are considering getting a Che tattoo, t-shirt, or towel rack, you may want to read up on him a little. He´s not the exactly the kind of guy you´d want your kids looking up to.

Been trying to find a Spanish edition of one of Jorge Luis Borges´ books to practice with, but having a devil of a time. The Chileans hate him because he´s Argentinian and the Argentinians are down on him for being too European. On top of this, bookstores down here are not only lacking in any kind of alphabetized schema, but also full of translated novels by Elmore Leonard and Tom Clancy.

A girl from Buenos Aires asked me why American movies are so violent and I told her I honestly didn´t know. She said that Sex and the City was much better than any American movie and I found myself unable to argue.