La Catedral - New Argentina

Last night Barbara invited me along to La Catedral - the "New Argentina" interpretation of a tango hall. Matías warned me that the place was feo (gross), but I wanted to check it out anyway.  The reviews I read said that it was an abandoned factory that had been turned into a space for tango dancing and "art".

Arriving at the door, the first thought I had was that I was in Williamsburg, Brooklyn.  The place looked like a warehouse from the outside, and the inside was no better.  "Abandoned factory" to me means an old building with a lot of space... but this, well this really was an abandoned factory.  There were still a lot of the installations in place from the factory days, and absolutely nothing had been done to make the place "habitable" other than throwing some tables and REALLY old couches into it.  The walls were half painted, and the light fixtures were either broken or flickering.

Barbara was totally in her element.  She loved the space, and kept talking about how it had such a good vibe for just chilling.  Matías and I, on the other hand, felt like the people in charge were just really lazy, with low standards of living, who didn't bother to clean up the place.  At one point, we had two guitarist/singers come out and do a few numbers, and although Barbara and her friends seemed to enjoy it, all I could do was notice when they were wildly out of tune, or singing with terrible technique.  Matías kept going off on the "New Argentina" and how it has no standards and how they expect so little from their artists, so little in terms of manners and respect from the people around then, and so little from the city they live in.  In a lot of ways he's right - how can a city improve if the people in it don't expect it to?

The real kicker to the whole experience, however, was when a cat crossed the dance floor with a mouse in his mouth, and no one even turned to notice.  Later, while the cat was feeding on it's prey, one of the waiters went over to pet the animal.  Can I say "eew" any louder?

Nonetheless, the experience was worthwhile.  I got to practice tango for a few songs (Matías said I've improved since Mendoza, but I dunno if he's just being polite... he's big on being polite) and see another side of the city.