CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY International Hipsters By Lynn Darroch Alan Costley’s Cobblers Bench 816 sw 10 portland 222 2577 There must be international hipsters in Lima somewhere,” I complained after we’d been here for several weeks. All I’d seen on the streets were a few middle-class Peruvian kids with jeans and long hair. Beards are fashionable for all but the military anyway. There are international travelers, of course, but they’re just passing through. No one seemed to belong to that select group of artists, bohemians and expatriates that I’d imagined holed up somewhere in a cozy corner of Lima, meeting in bars and restaurants, wise to the world . . . 1 really didn’t know what an international hipster would be like in 1979, yet in coming to Lima, I ’d thought for sure I would find some. Given the opportunity, who knows? maybe I’d even be one myself. But weeks passed and there was still no sign. 1hadn’t met a single person who didn’t work all day for a living. Then one day in late December I was taken to El Cordano, a cavernous restaurant with three dining rooms and an immense bar. It’s located across the street from the train station, near the Central Post Office, and a few doors down from the reputed hipster hotel, La Europa. “ You w an ted in te rn a t io n a l hipsters,” Susan said after we were seated. “Well, there they are.” She laughed. Just a few steps away, close enough to touch, were two tables of them, both men and women with earrings, unkempt hair, and unwashed. The men dressed in faded jeans or loose Indian pants with shirts open to the waist, the women with bare midriffs, halter-tops, and hoops of gold around their wrists. Most of them conversed in fluent Spanish, and they looked more European than North American. All had bright and tired eyes. A few of the women were barefoot, too — ay caray!! barefoot in Lima’s filth — with unshaven legs and armpits. The middle-aged Peruvian women in the restaurant stared at them with contempt, but the international hipsters didn’t pay them any mind. They were loudly involved among themselves, smoking cheap cigarettes, drinking and calling on the waiter with familiarity. One woman sang snatches of an old criollo song, “ . . . the King of Spain is dead . . . ” They wore Indian coca pouches. Bony noses and light skin surrounded the dark circles under their eyes. A woman entered like an apparition and joined them. She had uncombed hair that formed a halo over her emaciated face, arms and legs like sticks, and needle marks right out there in the open for anyone to see. “ I was hoping for something else,” I said ruefully. But Lima, at the close of the Year of Austerity, with civil liberties suspended for thirty days to bring in the New Year, was no place for an international hipster, nor for artists nor bohemians of any kind. The only hipsters left are those for the cocaine and cheap marijuana, the ones with tired, bright eyes. Many days later, at the Clinica Anglo-Americana, with stomach trouble, I saw the thin woman from El Cordano again. She was walking down the corridor barefooted, accompanying a stretcher on which another international hipster was laid out, his arm attached to a vial and a look of grateful surrender on his face. As they passed from the Emergency Room, the woman walked so tranquilly along on bare feet that I wondered if she’d done this before. Maybe she was only drugged. “ How can they get by in Peru, looking like that?” I asked Susan. “ They pay their way, too, I guess,” she replied.■ Maine Moes by Chris Craft red, navy, green, yellow, brown, taupe, wine, $25. Unique g i f t items under f ive do lla rs Custom Scenting 60 scents to choose from : • Massage oils • Lotions for all skin types • Bubble baths & bath oils Tues-Sat 10-5:30 727 N.W. 21st Ave. Portland, Oregon 9720 CULTURAL IMPERIALISM I am eating cojinova encebollada in El Estribo on Avenida Larco in Miraflores, Lima, Peru. Darkness is falling. Radio America is turned up loud: an programa presentada por "Foxy Lady," lo mejor en vestidos. They play Lou Rawls, the Eagles' "Hotel California" and some disco tunes. Everytime I come here I listen To "Disco Inferno" ("Burnin', bu rn in '"). Kids drive by and drop firecrackers. It's Saturday night. D runks piss against lamp posts and guys walk down the sidewalks with their dates. Upper-class girls have taken to referring to their boyfriends as "mi Travolta. Lynn Darroch Z 2 7- +760 11
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