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Map of South America, with the pampas encompassing a south-eastern area bordering the Atlantic ocean.

The Pampas (from Quechua pampa, meaning "plain") are fertile South American lowlands, covering more than 750,000 km² (289,577 sq mi), that include the Argentine provinces of Buenos Aires, La Pampa, Santa Fe, Entre Ríos and Córdoba, most of Uruguay, and the southernmost Brazilian State, Rio Grande do Sul. These vast plains are a natural region only interrupted by the low Ventana and Tandil hills near Bahía Blanca and Tandil (Argentina), with a height of 1,300 m (4,265 ft) and 500 m (1,640 ft) respectively. The climate is mild, with precipitation of 600 mm (23.6 in) to 1,200 mm (47.2 in), more or less evenly distributed through the year, making the soils appropriate for agriculture. This area is also one of the distinct physiography provinces of the larger Paraná-Paraguay Plain division. These plains contain unique wildlife because of the different terrains around it. Some of this wildlife includes the rhea, the pampas deer, several species of armadillos, the pampas fox, the White-eared opossum, the Elegant Crested Tinamou, and several other species.

Climate[link]

Pampas landscape, at eye level

The climate of the Pampas is generally temperate, gradually giving way to a more tropical climate in the north, and to an arid climate on the west and the south. Summer temperatures are more uniform than winter temperatures, ranging from 20 °C (68 °F) to 32 °C (90 °F) in the north, 17 °C (63 °F) to 30 °C (86 °F) in most of the areas, and from 15 °C (59 °F) to 27 °C (81 °F) along the Atlantic coast. Extremely hot days might reach over 40ºC/104F.

Fall arrives gradually in March, and peaks in April and May. In April, highs will range from 20 to 25 °C (68 to 77 °F) and lows from 9 to 13 °C (48 to 55 °F). The first frosts arrive in mid-April in the south, and in late May or early June in the north.

Winters are generally mild, although cold waves do occur. Normal temperatures range from 12 to 19 °C (54 to 66 °F) during the day, and from 1 to 6 °C (34 to 43 °F) at night. With strong northerly winds, days of over 25 °C (77 °F) can be recorded almost everywhere, whereas during cold waves, high temperatures can be only 6ºC (43F). Frost occurs everywhere in the Pampas, although it is much more frequent in the southwest, and less so around the Parana and Uruguay rivers. Temperatures under −5 °C (23 °F) can occur everywhere, whereas values of −10 °C (14 °F) or lower are confined to the south and west. Snow never falls in the northernmost third, and is rare and light elsewhere, except for exceptional events where depths have reached 30 cm (12 inches).

Springs are very variable, it is warmer than fall in most areas (especially in the west) but significantly colder along the Atlantic. Violent storms are more common, as well as wide temperature variations: days of 35 °C (95 °F) can give way to nights of under 5 °C (41 °F) or even frost, all within the same week.

Precipitation ranges from 1,200 millimetres (47 in) in the northeast, to about 500 millimetres (20 in) in the southern and western edges. In the west, it is highly seasonal, with some places recording averages of 120 millimetres (4.7 in) monthly in the summer, and only 20 millimetres (0.8 in) monthly in the winter. The eastern areas have small peaks in the fall and in the spring, with relatively rainy summers and winters that are only slightly drier. However, where summer rain falls as short, heavy storms, winter rain falls mostly as cold drizzle, so that the amount of rainy days is fairly constant. Violent thunderstorms are common in the spring and summer, bringing heavy rain, hail, winds and even tornadoes.

Vegetation[link]

Frequent wildfires ensure that only small plants such as grasses flourish, and trees are rare. The dominant vegetation types are grassy prairie and grass steppe in which numerous species of the grass genus Stipa are particularly conspicuous. "Pampas Grass" (Cortaderia selloana) is an iconic species of the Pampas. Vegetation typically includes perennial grasses and herbs. Different strata of grasses occur because of gradients of water availability.

The World Wildlife Fund divides the Pampas into three distinct ecoregions. The Uruguayan Savannah lies east of the Uruguay River, and includes all of Uruguay and the southern portion of Brazil's state of Rio Grande do Sul. The Humid Pampas include eastern Buenos Aires Province, and southern Entre Ríos Province. The Semi-arid Pampas includes western Buenos Aires Province and adjacent portions of Santa Fe, Córdoba, and La Pampa provinces. The Pampas are bounded by the drier Argentine espinal grasslands, which form a semicircle around the north, east, and south of the Humid Pampas.

Winters are cool to mild and summers are very warm and humid. Rainfall is fairly uniform throughout the year but is a little heavier during the summer. Annual rainfall is heaviest near the coast and decreases gradually further inland. Rain during the late spring and summer usually arrives in the form of brief heavy showers and thunderstorms. More general rainfall occurs the remainder of the year as cold fronts and storm systems move through. Although cold spells during the winter often send nighttime temperatures below freezing, snow is quite rare. In most winters, a few light snowfalls occur over inland areas.

Central Argentina boasts a successful agricultural business, with crops grown on the Pampas south and west of Buenos Aires. Much of the area is also used for cattle and more recently to grow vineyards in the Buenos Aires wine region. These farming regions are particularly susceptible to flooding during heavy rainfall.

View of the northern Pampas grain belt

Lake Gómez, near Junín, in the heart of the Pampas grain belt. The Pampa extends from the foothills of the Andes Mountains on the west to the Atlantic Ocean on the east. The region is peppered with finger lakes, holdovers from the last Ice Ages.

Al Este Bodega y Viñedos in Médanos, located in the Southern tip of the Buenos Aires province 40 km (25 mi) away from Bahía Blanca.

See also[link]

• Humid Pampa
• Dry Pampa
• Pampas Republic
• Gaucho
• Médanos wines
• Médanos (dunes)
• Estancia
• Rio Grande do Sul

External links[link]

• Encyclopaedia Britannica
• The Pampas
• Encyclopedia.com
• Climate Impacts
• Centres of Plant Diversity
• Climate Guide to South America
• Humid Pampas (World Wildlife Fund)
• Semi-arid Pampas (World Wildlife Fund)

Coordinates: 35°S 62°W / 35°S 62°W / -35; -62

v t e Subfields of physical geography Biogeography Climatology / Paleoclimatology Coastal geography Edaphology Geomorphology Glaciology Hydrology / Hydrography Landscape ecology Limnology Oceanography Palaeogeography Pedology/Soil science Quaternary science

Matthew Herbert
Herbert at Moers Festival 2006, Germany
Background information
Birth name	Matthew Herbert
Also known as	Herbert, Doctor Rockit, Radio Boy, Wishmountain
Born	1972
Origin	United Kingdom
Genres	Electronic music Microhouse Techno Jazz Classical
Occupations	DJ, Producer, Composer
Instruments	Sampler
Years active	1995 to present
Labels	Accidental Records
Website	http://www.matthewherbert.com

Matthew Herbert (born 1972), also known as Herbert, Doctor Rockit, Radio Boy, Mr. Vertigo, Transformer, and Wishmountain, is a British electronic musician. He has pioneered the use of so-called 'real', 'ordinary' or 'found' sounds in modern electronic music.^[1]

Career[link]

Herbert began experimenting with aleatoric processes while studying drama at Exeter University in the early 1990s. He gave his first professional public performance in 1995 as Wishmountain, reportedly using a bag of crisps as an instrument. Two years of performing under this name followed before he retired Wishmountain in favor of Radio Boy. In addition to creating rhythmic musique concrete as Radio Boy, however, Herbert worked on more traditional, yet relatively experimental dance music.

In the mid 90s he traveled to San Francisco, where he met jazz singer Dani Siciliano. In 1998, Herbert issued Around the House, which successfully mixed dance beats, sounds generated by everyday kitchen objects, and Siciliano's wry vocals. By the late Nineties, Herbert was remixing tracks for dance artists like Moloko, Motorbass, Alter Ego, and others. (Many of these were later collected on Secondhand Sounds: Herbert Remixes.) He also recorded singles, EPs, and albums under a variety of aliases (Doctor Rockit, Radio Boy, Mr. Vertigo, and Transformer) as well as his own name.

In 2001, Herbert issued Bodily Functions. Similar in structure to Around the House, it culled sounds generated by manipulating human hair and skin as well as internal bodily organs. Less severe than Matmos' work, its light and sinuous dance sound augured the rise of microhouse. Bodily Functions benefited from a deal Herbert signed with electronic imprint Studio !K7, making it his first full-length to receive worldwide distribution.

Goodbye Swingtime, a 2003 album issued as the Matthew Herbert Big Band, combined the political commentary of Radio Boy with the song structure of his Herbert albums. Recorded with sixteen musicians from the British jazz world, including saxophonists Dave O'Higgins and Nigel Hitchcock, pianist Phil Parnell, and bassist Dave Green, the band is complemented on stage by Siciliano, Arto Lindsay, Warp recording artist Jamie Lidell, and Mara Carlyle.

In 2005, he released a record entitled Plat Du Jour, a record made entirely from objects and situations in the food chain. He recorded beneath the sewers of Fleet Street, with Vietnamese coffee beans, inside industrial chicken farms, drove a tank over a recreation of the dinner that Nigella Lawson cooked for George Bush and Tony Blair, and recorded 3500 people biting an apple at the same time. The track entitled The Final Meal of Stacey Lawton was made in collaboration renowned chef Heston Blumenthal

On May 30, 2006, Herbert issued Scale, his most successful album to date. In the U.S., it reached number 20 on Billboard's electronic music album chart. Entertainment Weekly remarked, "Herbert sneakily subverts Scale's apocalyptic thematic thread into something warm and danceable."^[2] Online magazine Pitchfork Media noted, "Sophisticated and whimsical, joyful and yet tinged with sadness, Scale is one of this year's great albums."^[3]

In October 2008 Matthew Herbert released the second album by his Matthew Herbert Big Band project, entitled 'There's Me And There's You', fronted by vocalist Eska. On the record he recorded inside the houses of parliament, at a landfill site, and in the lobby of the British Museum with 70 volunteers.

In 2010 Matthew Herbert released two of a three part trilogy of albums. The first: One One, was entirely written and performed by Herbert alone, the seconds : One Club was made exclusively out of sounds recorded at the Robert Johnson nightclub in Offenbach in Germany on one night.

That same year he also released a reworking of Mahler's tenth symphony for the Deutsche Grammophon's Recomposed series. Much of the recording was made inside Mahler's composing hut in Toblach, by his graveside and in a crematorium.

In late 2011, the final part of the trilogy "One Pig" was be released. Herbert recorded the life cycle of a farmed pig from birth to the dinner plate. The animal rights organisation PETA condemned the album when it was announced without hearing it.^[1] Herbert, who is not a vegetarian, responded that their complaints were "utterly asburd" and that he wanted his music to encourage people to "listen to the world a little more carefully."^[1]

Theories and politics[link]

In 2000, Herbert wrote a manifesto titled "Personal Contract for the Composition of Music (Incorporating the Manifest of Mistakes)",^[4] which served as a theoretical guide for much of his ensuing work. Often referred to as PCCOM, some of its eleven goals includes a personal ban on using drum machines and pre-existing samples, and ensuring that anything created in the studio can be replicated in live performance.

Many of his less dance-oriented projects (chiefly those not recorded under the name Herbert) take on sundry political concerns, using specific objects to create a conceptual piece. His 2001 project as Radio Boy, The Mechanics of Destruction sampled objects from McDonald's & The Gap merchandise as a protest against corporate globalism. It was made available as a free MP3 download, via concerts and could be acquired by sending an addressed envelope to accidental records. It is still available to download for free.

In 2005 Herbert released the album Plat du Jour under his proper name, Matthew Herbert. The disc addresses commercial food production and marketing.

In February 2006, Herbert helped form the virtual community Country X.^[5] In an introduction posted on the website, he writes, "Why not start a country? only this time, a virtual one. free from the necessity to defend its borders physically, we can reduce the violence of exclusion. a new description of resistance."

Herbert shared some of his thoughts on the future in an article for UK music magazine, 'Clash', writing "we are facing a perfect storm of shit: global financial meltdown, massive climatic shifts and the end of oil."^[6]

Accidental Records[link]

By 2000 Herbert assembled several microlabels he initiated, including Soundslike (for his Herbert alias) and Lifelike (originally called Lowlife, begun in 1998 for his Doctor Rockit alias), under the umbrella Accidental Records. In addition to documenting Herbert's sundry projects, these imprints issued works from The Soft Pink Truth, Mara Carlyle, Mugison and Beckett & Taylor among others. Between 2008 and 2009, the label released 'Butterflies' by Finn Peters, the sophomore record of Matthew Herbert Big Band named 'There's Me And There's You', The Invisible's debut album, Setsubun Bean Unit, and Micachu's debut named 'Jewellery'.

2010/2011 sees the release of a trilogy concept album by Herbert, beginning with 'One One', followed by 'One Club' and 'One Pig'.

Additional projects[link]

Matthew Herbert has produced remixes for numerous artists, including Moloko, Ennio Morricone, Quincy Jones, Björk, R.E.M., Perry Farrell, Serge Gainsbourg, Yoko Ono, John Cale, The Avalanches and Cornelius. He programmed three tracks on Björk's Vespertine, and produced The Invisible's debut album, along with Moloko singer Róisín Murphy's album Ruby Blue'. He has also produced albums for Micachu, Merz and Finn Peters

He has contributed music to several films, including Human Traffic and Dogme 95 director Kristian Levring's The Intended, Agathe Clery, Le Defi, HBO's A Number, as well as UK television, theatrical and concert dance productions.

Herbert also wrote music for the YouTube documentary film Life in a Day along with prominent composer Harry Gregson-Williams.

In 2012 he is relaunching the museum of sound at www.museumofsound.com

Discography[link]

As Herbert[link]

• 100 lbs (1996)
• Parts One Two and Three (1996)
• Parts Remixed (1996)
• Around the House (1998)
• Bodily Functions (2001)
• Secondhand Sounds: Herbert Remixes (2002)
• Scale (2006)

As Matthew Herbert[link]

• Letsallmakemistakes (Globus Mix Vol. 5) (1995)
• Plat du Jour (2005)
• Score (2006)
• Recomposed: Mahler symphony X (2010)
• One One (2010)
• One Club (2010)
• One Pig (2011) ^[7]

As Doctor Rockit[link]

• The Music of Sound (1996)
• Indoor Fireworks (2000)
• Veselka's Diner (2003)
• The Unnecessary History of Doctor Rockit (2004)

As The Matthew Herbert Big Band[link]

• Goodbye Swingtime (2003)
• There's Me and There's You (2008)

As Radio Boy[link]

• Wishmountain Is Dead, Long Live Radio Boy (1997)
• The Mechanics of Destruction (2001)

As Wishmountain[link]

• Wishmountain (1998)
• Wishmountain is Dead (1998)

References[link]

External links[link]

• Matthew Herbert's own website
• The Matthew Herbert Big Band website
• 100lbs website
• Scale website
• The Mechanics of Destruction (site expired)
• Accidental Records website
• Matthew Herbert's PCCOM manifesto
• Matthew Herbert at Discogs
• Plat du Jour website
• Matthew Herbert and Accidental Records activity
• Cool Hunting Video on Herbert released jan. 2007

The avenue on its route towards the Barrio Parque area.

Avenida Figueroa Alcorta is a major thoroughfare in Buenos Aires, Argentina, with a length of over 7 km (4.3 mi) along the city's northside.

History[link]

The rapid northward growth of the city of Buenos Aires during the late nineteenth century was facilitated by plans for a number of boulevards in the area by Mayor Torcuato de Alvear. Shortly after the opening of Viceroy Vértiz Avenue (today Avenida del Libertador) in 1906, a parallel boulevard was begun to serve the numerous upscale neighborhoods planned for the largely undeveloped northside.^[1]

Planned with the assistance of French Argentine urbanist Carlos Thays and around his recent remodeling of Parque Tres de Febrero, the thoroughfare was opened on the 1910 centennial of the May Revolution that led to independence and was, accordingly, named Avenida Centenario. Thays also designed a new residential neighborhood anchored around the new avenue: Barrio Parque, opened for development in 1912.^[2] The Sanitation Works Commission's massive water reclamation plant was subsequently built along the avenue's northern stretch.

Excavations along the avenue in 2008 uncovered remains of the former Hansen's Café.

Location of Avenida Figueroa Alcorta in Buenos Aires.

Chrysler Motors opened an assembly plant on the avenue in 1932 (since demolished), an investment complemented by a testing facility housed in an ornate structure north of Barrio Parque (the former facility today houses condominiums and an automobile museum).^[3] The northern end of the avenue became home to the River Plate Football Club's monumental stadium, finished in 1938.^[4] The avenue was later graced by tennis and country clubs, parks and a number of monumental public buildings, though its boulevard medians were removed around 1970 to accommodate growing traffic. Excavations along the avenue in 2008 uncovered remains of the former Hansen's Café, among the city's first and most popular tango redoubts until its demolition in 1912.^[5]

Itinerary[link]

Floralis Genérica, metal sculpture located in Plaza de las Naciones Unidas.

A one way thoroughfare, the avenue begins at its eastern end past the Buenos Aires Palais de Glace in the upscale Recoleta section. Passing by the University of Buenos Aires Law School, the monumental Neoclassic structure dating from the administration of President Juan Perón (who had it built in the early 1950s as the future headquarters of the CGT, Argentina's largest labor union), the avenue also travels behind the National Fine Arts Museum and past United Nations Plaza. There, architect Eduardo Catalano installed the iconic Floralis Genérica in 2001. Past UN Plaza, the avenue passes by Argentine Public Television Studios, an extensive Modernist structure opened in 1978 and known locally for its roof garden. The studios are visually complemented by the reflecting pools in Rubén Darío Plaza and by the Chilean Embassy, a smaller, modernist building built in 1969. Behind the adjoining Chile Plaza, the San Martín National Institute and monument to José de San Martín anchor the leafy Barrio Parque neighborhood. The Institute is housed in a 1946 replica of the Liberator's Boulogne-sur-Mer residence in his later years. Along the other side of the avenue, businessman Eduardo Constantini opened his Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA) in 2001.

Passing by the Buenos Aires Japanese Gardens in the Palermo section of the city, the avenue leaves its residential surroundings, traveling through parks and other public areas for the remaining stretches. Cutting through urbanist Carlos Thays' vast Parque Tres de Febrero, it affords a view of his extensive rose garden and of the Galileo Galilei planetarium, opened in 1966. The intersection with Sarmiento Avenue features Renzo Baldi and Héctor Rocha's Monument to General Justo José de Urquiza. Passing by the Buenos Aires Lawn Tennis Club, the City Velodrome and the Regata Lake, it enters the Belgrano neighborhood, where it ends at Guillermo Udaondo Avenue, past the River Plate football stadium.

The University of Buenos Aires Law School, Floralis Genérica in background.

The Le Parc Figueroa Alcorta condominium towers.

The Japanese Gardens and architecture overlooking the avenue.

The Latin American Art Museum of Buenos Aires (MALBA).

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Avenida Figueroa Alcorta

Coordinates: 34°34′52″S 58°23′51″W / 34.58103°S 58.39737°W / -34.58103; -58.39737