Intersections

Declined table at Mexico City cafe, woman sparks political drama

** Originally published at World Now:

MEXICO CITY -- Talk about a tough customer.

Indignant that she didn't get a sidewalk table during the busy lunch hour at a swanky Mexico City bistro, the daughter of a chief federal regulator threatened to call her father and have the place shut down.

Two hours later, according to reports, inspectors from Mexico's consumer protection agency, known by its Spanish acronym, Profeco, showed up in the trendy Roma district and attempted to close the cafe for alleged "anomalies" in its reservation system and in its offerings of mezcal.

But at Maximo Bistrot, a sort of "local-fare" corner cafe where a sit-down meal can cost about $25, the customers apparently wouldn't give up their tuna and wine without a fight. Armed with cellphone cameras, diners reportedly accosted and intimidated the inspectors so severely that the government workers fled, unable to halt operations at the cafe.

"All of this due to the dissatisfaction of one girl, to whom I couldn't give the table she wanted, at the hour she wanted, and well, that's how things are in this country: People with influence can call their daddy and ruin your afternoon," Gabriela Lopez, a co-owner of the restaurant, told one news outlet.

The incident was the latest class and corruption scandal to spark up social media in Mexico.

The so-called "Ladies de Polanco" made headlines in 2011 after two women were caught on amateur video berating and assaulting a pair of police officers near one of the fanciest streets in town. Last year, a wealthy businessman was jailed after video emerged of him knocking out the teeth of a valet parking attendant who did not obey him.

The Friday tussle at the Mexico City bistro comes as the public's honeymoon with the return of the former ruling party has shown increasing signs of cracking. Dissident teachers have blocked highways in Guerrero state and a vote-buying scandal unfolding in Veracruz threatens to derail a national reform agenda.

Under the Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, which ruled Mexico with a heavy hand for decades and returned to power last year with the election of President Enrique Peña Nieto, connections and privileges related to political appointments were a social norm. Peña Nieto promised "a new PRI," although most of his Cabinet picks came with extensive experience in previous PRI administrations marked by corruption and abuse.

On Sunday, Andrea Benitez Gonzalez, daughter of the Profeco chief, PRI appointee Humberto Benitez Treviño, apologized on Twitter for any "discomfort" caused by the incident she started at Maximo Bistrot. Her father later followed with his own online apology.

"My sincere apology for the inappropriate behavior of my daughter and the overreaction of my Profeco inspectors," wrote Humberto Benitez, who served as an attorney general under former PRI President Carlos Salinas de Gortari. 

Early Monday, it appeared the "Lady Profeco" drama, as it was quickly dubbed on Twitter, had grown political legs. In a terse statement, a separate federal agency announced it would start an investigation over the Profeco inspection at the cafe, on orders, it said, from the president of the republic.

Video report: Tacos de guisado in Polanco

** First published at ABC/Univision. Go here for full video; introduction below:

A couple years ago I went to a magazine party near the ritzy Polanco district in Mexico City. Polanco isn't a place where I would necessarily hang out on a weekend night, but friends from L.A. were in town to DJ at a party. As we were leaving -- tipsy, hungry, and not exactly flush with cash -- the taco gods smiled. We stumbled upon a true D.F. sidewalk taco spot.

The stand was surrounded with people and crackling with energy at four in the morning. It had all the good meats -- bistec, pollo, chorizo -- a full barrage of salsas, queso, and all the Mexican Coke or Boing de guava that your heart could desire. And it was just steps from Polanco's embassies and trendy antros that cater to people who like $15 martinis. I was in heaven, and left a bit ashamed by my own stereotyping. Time and time again, this megalopolis of 20 million people reminds me that one can never hold on to assumed truths about any neighborhood's profile.

Because at the end of the day, everyone in Mexico is a taco lover. No matter your class or zip code, Polanco happens to be an epicenter of excellent street food. In that spirit, here's a hands-on take, if you will, of some of those offerings. As you will see, street food in Polanco can be as delicious -- and as precarious -- as anywhere else in DF. Brunch at the corner, anyone?

* Previously in Intersections, "A taco's taco in Polanco."

** Gracias, Diana O. Cave!

Chicago diary, Part 2 *

As I'm coming from Mexico City -- home to 13,000 surveillance video cameras -- I'm always on the look out for a digital eye watching the scene. This is a public security camera in Pilsen, Chicago. It's a reality in 21st Century big cities: the security forces are watching you. Here, they call them PODs, and there are a lot of them in designated "safe zones."

Graffiti and gang-related homicides are a problem in Chicago. This saddening story tells how tweens attempt to make social lives under the threat of gang violence. "I want to be able to walk around in a neighborhood and not think about getting shot," said a girl named Samaiya.

Of course, there is much more to any hood than whatever criminal profile might be attached to it. In Pilsen, we checked out the National Museum of Mexican Art and had burritos on a main strip.

Chicago diary, Part 1

This was some radical gang graffiti in Chicago, I guess, proclaiming, "Radicals Against Discrimination," like it was a slogan for a political party or a popular movement.

Somewhere along the north end of the city's shore on Lake Michigan, near Lincoln Park and DePaul University, an idealistic and committed Chicagoan, possibly a young person, decided it was necessary to say what she or he stood for.

Apart from the factor of a strong punk scene in Chicago, the gesture made me smile. People here are straight-up.

Chicago is huge. Some 2.7 million within the city limits and about 9.8 million people in the metropolitan region at large. I was more excited for this trip than any in a long while. What is going on down there? Had just a few short days to gather an impression, in for a talk at DePaul.

While landing, the city looked gargantuan and seemed to spread, dilligently and with evident muscularity, to the far-off horizons. Old-school, built-up, tough, efficient Americana. Chicago.

Upon arrival, the cold was significant. But it also felt good on the lungs. Above, your blogger before the Anish Kapoor sculpture "Cloud Gate" at Millenium Park near the Lake Michigan waterfront.

The Tribune Tower.

Pizza at a neighborhood family pizza spot in Brighton Park, a Mexican barrio near the Mexican Chicago epicenter of Pilsen. I was pretty astounded at first sight but now let's just say it flat and move on. "Chicago is a Mexican city," as ethnographer Daniel Makagon put it one night.

So here we were, a family pizza place on a Saturday night in Mexican Chicago. The pizza crust was amazing; rest of pie, so-so, but it didn't matter. The winning factor was the ambience. Almost everyone inside was brown. Others represented the ethnic diversity that is a standard cosmopolitanism of Mexican barrios anywhere in the world.

Anyone who lives in a pocho/paisa hood inevitably becomes somewhat Mexican themselves, right?

Party over? Alcohol sales banned on Mexico's Plaza Garibaldi

** Originally published at World Now and re-published in the Sunday, Oct. 28, 2012, print edition of the Los Angeles Times:

Will the last wailing, stumbling drunk person on Mexico City's Plaza Garibaldi please turn off the lights on the way out?

The government of Mexico City, where drinking until dawn has long been a competitive pastime, has banned the sale and drinking of alcoholic beverages on the esplanade of Plaza Garibaldi. Public drinking was a previously tolerated custom at the meeting point for hundreds of struggling busking mariachi musicians and their glad-to-be-sad customers.

Authorities said alcohol would still be sold at the bars and cantinas that ring Garibaldi, but the practice of chugging beers or downing mixed drinks outdoors in the early-morning hours with mariachis crooning nearby will halt under Operation Zero Tolerance, said Alberto Esteva, subsecretary of public policy at City Hall.

Under the administration of Mayor Marcelo Ebrard, the city has invested about $26.8 million to revitalize Plaza Garibaldi, mostly on the construction of its Museum of Tequila and Mezcal and the repaving of the square. The outdoor alcohol ban is one more step in that plan, Esteva said in an interview.

"We gave the vendors alternative options, they didn't respond, and the city had to make a decision," the official said. "Garibaldi is about evoking that Mexican-ness, those customs, but permanent drunkenness is not one of them."

Alcohol sales were first barred Wednesday night, and by Thursday afternoon, without a vendor in sight on Garibaldi's wide expanse, mariachis and business owners expressed ambivalence about the new policy.

"There will be fewer people, because that's why they come downtown. To drink, drink here, and go somewhere else," said Soledad Diaz de Dios, whose family owns a recently renovated pulque bar on the square, La Hermosa Hortencia. "But [the drinking on the plaza] is also bad, for the tourism aspect."

Complaints of violence, public vomiting and marijuana smoking have grown. The plaza has also seen large brawls and confrontations with police involving semi-homeless youths, identified as "punks" by some of the musicians. Reportedly, drinks on the plaza are also sometimes spiked with substances meant to alter drinkers' mental states and thus make them vulnerable to assault.

"[The policy] is good, in quotation marks," said trumpet player Jesus Rosas. "Every Thursday through Saturday night, the party starts. And what's the party? Fights, breaking bottles, robberies."

But without the open-air drinking to go along with the mariachis, norteños, and jarochos, will Plaza Garibaldi ever be the same? Mariachis have complained to the city that the museum, for example, blocks access to the plaza, reducing their customer base.

"It hasn't been reformed, it's been completely tronado," huffed old-timer David Figueroa, a guitar player, using a slang term for broken, failed or flopped.

* Photo: Soledad Diaz de Dios, a vendor at the pulquería La Hermosa Hortencia on Plaza Garibaldi, Oct. 27, 2012.

Un domingo en los Dinamos

(You're not supposed to do this anymore in D.F., but oooooh ... just for old time's sake, like it's the year 2002.)

This is Parque de los Dinamos in southwestern Distrito Federal.

The bottom part where most visitors gather is not much. And like with other big parks on the outskirts of the city, there is a petty and sometimes-violent crime issue at los Dinamos that should be noted.

But anyway, it's the woods, it's the mountains, and in crowded chilangolandia, it's a sigh of relief.

Additionally, the pulques are good.

These are curados of piña con guarana and an apio. Both were excellent.

Incidents of travel in the Yucatan, Part 4 *

This is the mercado in Tizimin, a stop between Valladolid and the port of Chiquilá. The mercado is easily one of the coolest structures I think I've ever seen in Mexico. It is circular; concentric rows of stalls are separated in meats, produce, produce, and meats again. Tizimin is known for its meats. But not for this building, unbelievably.

The design makes the market feel airy, inviting, even logical; those are qualities that would rarely be used to describe a mercado in Mexico, where stalls are usually crammed into a dense maze system. The circular design also permits the room to be flooded with natural light all day. Noise bounces around soothingly.

I found a circular market online in Coventry, Britain, and one Givry, France. Any others? In Tizimin's case, it feels like one of those rare "perfect" buildings, in terms of its properties of harmony, and I'm glad I got to see it.

It was a Saturday. We asked vendors when the market was built, or who designed it. The most we got was that it was about 50 years old. If so, the mercado would have been built during the boom of spirited Modern architecture in Mexico, chronicled by enthusiasts such as Mario Ballesteros.

What brilliant young Maya architect snagged this PRI era contract and came up with harmony? Is the form a reference to prehispanic Maya design? Or is it by the architect who did TAPO? Serious Investigations.

A face among Mexico's 14 million informal workers

** Originally published at World Now:

She sits on a plastic stool patting blue-green corn between her palms in front of a portable charcoal grill on a street corner in this city’s dense and noisy downtown.

Lilia Dorantes, who sells the stuffed maize patties known as tlacoyos, works around the corner from a newspaper vendor, a fruit vendor, a pirated-DVD vendor and a vendor who sells dolls dressed as Mexican marines and federal police.

The street vendors belong to an army of off-the-book workers who now make up a record 14 million Mexicans pumping money into the informal economy, the national statistics institute reported last  week.

The number of informal workers in Mexico has increased by 1.6 million since 2010, the statistics agency reported. Overall, informal laborers make up nearly a third of all those employed in Mexico.

Although the informal market, drug money-laundering and remittances from Mexican workers in the United States all help keep the economy afloat, Mexico lost an average of $50 billion in the last decade to what are called illicit financial outflows — money circulating through Mexico but in theory not going toward infrastructure, healthcare or education, according to a January report by Global Financial Integrity.

"That is money that the Mexican government could have used to improve the lifestyle and quality of living for the average Mexican," said economist Sarah Freitas at the Washington-based group.

But informal workers have little to no safety nets to fall back on in case of emergencies and can remain off the books their entire lives.

"What happens when I get sick? Well, with whatever I have saved up...," Dorantes said, trailing off and swatting away at her charcoal so that it would keep burning.

Dorantes, 39, said she makes about 300 pesos a day, or about $23, sharing the approximation of her profits hesitantly. In Mexico City, the information can be tempting to would-be robbers or burglars.

Vendors are believed to pay a daily or weekly tax to powerful street "leaders" who overseeindependent vendor associations or neighborhood groups with revolutionary-sounding names.

Dorantes said she pays about $10 a week to her leader to operate on a downtown sidewalk. Her mother sold tlacoyos for about 20 years in Mexico City's Chinatown, she said. In 2007, after Mayor Marcelo Ebrard's administration negotiated with vendor groups to remove them from the streets of the historic center, Dorantes and her tlacoyo operation simply picked up and moved a few blocks away.

Dorantes said she's growing tired of her four-hour round-trip daily commute from a pueblo just outside Toluca, the capital of the neighboring state. She has a small daughter and a daughter entering high school and would like to be nearer to them, maybe by setting up a tlacoyo stand outside her door.

"I would like to have a legal place," she said, patting more maize together. "The difference here is, no one bosses me around."

Asian couple eating sushi at Pyramid of the Sun

Here's how to do Teotihuacan in style: This Japanese couple chose a perch atop the Pyramid of the Sun earlier this month to sit down for a sushi picnic.

* Previously, "Spring equinox at Teotihuacan."

Disapprove

** See also this. "No you don't."

A 'Mexico City Cafe' in 1950s Los Angeles?

Remember Mexico City in the 1940s? Here's another good one.

Via LAObserved, this is an L.A. Public Library photograph showing the intersection of 1st Street and Broadway in downtown L.A., with a view of the corner where the gloomy Times Mirror corporate building now stands.

That's on the block that is sometimes gallantly known as Times Mirror Square, the headquarters of the once-storied L.A. Times company, where I went to work between 2002 and 2006 (and work now again, from farther away). In 1954, it looked like this. Look closely. There's a sign for a "Mexico City Cafe" in the mid-right, near the woman's head.

Come again? A place called Mexico City Cafe in downtown Los Angeles in the 1950s? Boggles the mind. A quick search turned up zero, and I'm left wondering and imagining ... Who founded it? How long was it there? What did this place look like inside? What was on the menu?

How did regular downtown Angelenos in the period respond to and interact with this cipher from its future "sister city"? Did LAT staffers or City Hall workers take lunch there? Did they like it? And, what are the cafe's ghosts?

This calls for a Serious Investigation. Mike Davis?

** EXTRA: Zocalo Public Square, another of my writing homes, asked this week, "What Movie (Besides Chinatown) Best Captures L.A.?" I thought of this one.

Dia de Muertos en Oaxaca *

* UPDATE: My report from San Agustin Etla, "A lively street party for the dead in Oaxaca, Mexico."

This is a Day of the Dead altar in a home in Oaxaca, Oaxaca, just now. All the elements were gathered on Sunday at the city's bustling Central de Abastos, at the special tianguis de muertos.

The pulque and tepache stand was closed. Momentary sad-face. 

Over here, we're looking at how they're passing noche de los difuntos in Ciudad Juarez; by beating up protesters and photographers outside a police station.

Honoring my dead and all of the dead of Mexico. Wherever you are, good evening.

* Previously, "In Mexico, more deaths than can we can image."

A New York diary, Part 2

I'm just gonna to keep it real up-front right here.

During Part 1, Tuesday night, I had a nice dinner in the West Village with a friend, nice little Italian place, quintessentially New York, four cheeses. Later, in the dead of night, my stomach rumbled me awake. I got up. I then proceeded to puke up buckets and buckets of purple cheese sludge.

It was really disgusting. Came without warning, unprompted by alcohol or anything else. Just a violent expulsion. At a loss once more. Something in this city is disagreeing with me, I thought. Then Thursday happened ...

A New York diary, Part 1

Above, "Miss Octavia," at Suite, a bar near Columbia University, Saturday, April 9, the night of my arrival in New York City. She started her set by busting out "Seasons of Love" from the musical RENT, a song in search of a NYC that exists now mostly in the imagination.

This is New York, in "new winter," 2011. This is my New York diary.

Pulque de mamey

Here are two fresh glasses of pulque, curado de mamey, just about an hour ago, at Bosforo in Centro. Notice the fine company: a "Vicky" and the cinnamon, to sprinkle on top. Que frescura. Just like the cranberry curado they have at Duelistas right now.

Had another liter-to-go of that yesterday.

I've been running around all day, in the nasty hot contaminated windy spring D.F. weather, mutating me suddenly into a sufferer of allergies and sinus trouble, which has never really afflicted me before. The curse of Anahuac, perhaps. But here I am, finishing this March 3, this 2011, eager to dive into the new books I collected today from the feria de libro at Minería. More books than I can handle, than I'll ever be able to read. More books.

More or less, I think, just as the gods intended.

Tepache in Southern California *

This is imported tepache, a natural drink made from fermented pineapple. I spotted this bottle last week while on a beer run at the liquor store on Sunset and Alvarado in Echo Park, Los Angeles. Could be nasty but could be good, I thought.

Tepache is sold all over D.F. from carts on the streets (usually in plastic baggies) or at many taco or quesadilla stands. It's refreshing, tart, cool, and is fermented so well in some cases, as in Oaxaca, it sometimes acquires an alcohol content. Beer is added sometimes.

This version of tepache is made by a company named Frumex, which calls it "pineapple cider." It's the first I've seen this traditional drink from central Mexico in bottled form or in the United States. Popped it open and took a swig. Besides being carbonated, the Frumex product is 'authentic' and damn good, in the quality ginger or root beer category of good.

So later on, back out in Riverside 50 miles east from L.A. in Southern California's suburban country, I saw the bottled tepache again at a Mexican supermarket. Bought two bottles this time, one for me and one to share with my hosts.

More on tepache here, from Rachel Laudan. A mouth-watering recipe with photos is there, by Pati's Mexican Table.

(Now, knowing how these things work, let me know when you spot some bottled tepache at your neighborhood Trader Joe's. Only a matter of time, watch.)

* Edited.

Breakfast *

* Post updated 21-1-11.

"The food factor should always be massive: four Bloody Marys, two grapefruits, a pot of coffee, Rangoon crepes, a half-pound of either sausage, bacon, or corned beef hash with diced chiles, a Spanish omelette or eggs Benedict, a quart of milk, a chopped lemon for random seasoning, and something like a slice of Key lime pie, two margaritas, and six lines of the best cocaine for dessert… Right, and there should also be two or three newspapers, all mail and messages, a telephone, a notebook for planning the next twenty-four hours and at least one source of good music… All of which should be dealt with outside, in the warmth of a hot sun, and preferably stone naked."

Via, and more here.

Now come on, and be honest, doesn't just a fraction of that sound like a fat slice of heaven? "Stone naked"? I wonder how many days Thompson actually started off in this way. Every single one? And I'm reminded, I need to re-crack open my copy of "Fear & Loathing on the Campaign Trail '72," and finally get "Hells Angels," which I understand is a masterpiece of the form good ole Hunter S. Thompson perfected.

Today, Friday, I went for a big breakfast at la Pagoda, inspired. Huevos con jamon, cafe con leche, una donita, un plato de fruta, totopos y frijoles, salsa, jugo de naranga. Yours?

¿Que te dieron los Reyes Magos?

I got nothing but a big-ass county fair in my hood, which is all I could ever really ask for from Melchor, Gaspar, and Baltazar -- the guy in black-face. The fair ended Thursday night. I miss it already. That's where I'd been eating, according to my calculations, about ten different kinds of mega-healthy fair snacks on each of the, oh, five or six nights I went.

Read my crónica on the Reyes Magos fair at the Alameda Central here. And check out a video I shot of the weird floating inflatable spheres and a little chunk of live audio.

The funnest -- most fun? -- Tilt-a-Whirl rides play that kind of Mexican tribal. The dudes who run them, Tepito-style to the core, stand on the track the whole way, hopping on your carrito to make it swing more furiously. They even, swear-to-god, grabbed the top of the car sometimes, in a flash, hurling themselves into the air so their legs hit the ceiling of the ride itself, then pressing back down, twirling you till it hurts.

(One of the dudes -- sensing something? -- lifted his shirt a little at our mixed crew while a-whirling and did a little gigolo gyrating move in between, with a smirk. Thanks a lot, guy.)

At the feria, I had tlacoyos, blueberries dipped in chocolate and chocolate sprinkles, esquites, freshly fried french fries, cotton candy, fresh-made hotcakes with cajeta, lechera and (more) sprinkles, and something called a jarrito loco. (No idea, but as long as it had ice, chile, lime, and salt in it, it was fine by me.)

I loved the excessive P.D.A., the little kids out all night with their faces painted like tigers or fairies, the liberating kitschiness and tackiness of it, the sense that this hood -- downtown -- belongs to the always-stylish and hyper-stimulated tepiteño kids who populate it and culturally "run" it. That's the way it is, pretty much today, tomorrow, and as long as Centro is Centro. The feria is our focal point.

We took a photo with the Reyes, yes. But didn't get on "The Inverter." Maybe next year?

The perfect quesadilla, at Bosforo *

This is the quesadilla that they serve at the bar at Bosforo, a new mezcaleria in downtown D.F. Arturo, the friendly proprietor, is usually tending bar if you find yourself on Luis Moya at Independencia one hectic mid-week evening and walk in. When I'm there, famished, I often get the quesadilla.

And when I do, I usually stop and ponder the plate before me, thinking: 'This is a quesadilla from a more perfect future.'

The house dish at Bosforo is distinctly 'pre-Hispanic.' Arturo calls it "food from Anahuac," the original Aztec name for the place we now call Mexico. The barfood at Bosforo is noteworthy because it's what we might as well call indigenous fusion.

The Bosforo crew take a handmade blue-corn tortilla, lines it with fragrant hoja santa and white Oaxacan cheese, and fill it with chapulines. On the bar, there's always a fresh red chapulin salsa, homemade, still in the molcajete. They might serve it with whatever add-on dish comes with the house's nightly special, which changes every night, or a handful of fresh kumquats or mandarin oranges.

Always a struggle deciding between the regular quesadilla or whatever dish Arturo came up with that day. I don't even inquire too deeply on what it is; I already know I won't know what he's talking about.

"Tortitas de ahuetle con ayocotes." Yes, that's exactly what I want right now.

It was an incredible meal: Tiny waterbug eggs, in small patties, served with a side of ayocote, a beautiful native bean. The bug patties were delightful, similar in texture to caviar, and probably a delicacy of equal pedigree during the Aztec Empire. Is this what Cuauhtemoc was dreaming about when Cortes had his feet placed over a fire?

Bosforo is a mellow, hoodie joint. Condesa-like airs or pretentions are out of place, meaning there's almost no serving/being-served dichotomy. Neighbors meet up here, indie zines have parties, small presses. Walk in and someone might be playing their best from Brazil or Iran.

Thankfully, if you're not looking for it, you'll miss the bar from the street. But if you are looking, Bosforo is located at Luis Moya 31 just before Independencia, half-a-block down from a new Ecobici rack.

The Bosforo mezcales that I most covet are the "espadin amarillo" and the "chocolate." It finishes with a sizzling note of cacao. An extra FYI: Tambien curan su propio pulque.

Thanksgiving in Mexico City *

Above, a view of the turkey scramble when the the first of two birds finally appeared, past 11 p.m., this Thanksgiving night at an apartment in the Cuauhtemoc barrio of Mexico City.

There are plenty of hidden Thanksgiving rituals in D.F. For the second year in a row, we partook in turkey and fixings on the last Thursday of November at the home of John Hecht, Mexico correspondent for the Hollywood Reporter and a Lonely Planet author.

Here's an after-shot of the second big pavo, poor thing:

I'm thankful I don't have to be in the U.S. for Thanksgiving since moving here (Black Friday terrifies me). John's crowded and boozey dia de accion de gracias, potluck-style and totally casual, is a chance to see colleagues and acquaintances.

For many amigos mexicanos eager to assimilate a new quirk of American culture, it is also just another healthy excuse to party.

Turning 30 on the border *

I'm breaking a rule about posting too many photos with me in them, but who cares, I'm 30 today! They tell me 30 is when you get to say, 'I can do whatever I want,' and it finally becomes true.

This is me at the Monte de los Olivos cemetery in Tijuana this morning. Came with my mom and cousin Alan to visit our muertos on my arrival from Mexico City. That's the imposing Cerro Colorado in the background. The wind is strong, the hot sun. Many memories here, bitter and yet also sweet.

Tijuana is as clean, modern, and orderly as ever. We had breakfast at La Espadaña -- fast becoming a custom for us when I come home on early morning flights -- and then I crossed the border on foot. The heart always quickens as I stand in line; obese people, people whose skin has seen too much sun-and-meth cocktail, ancient tattoos, drawling English, AMERICA!!

The customs agent was kind of enough to say, "Happy birthday!" after scanning my passport. It was the only time, I thought, that the border-crossing experience has made me smile genuinely.

More photos from Monte de los Olivos are here, here, and here.

It's very warm up here/down here. I've slept all afternoon and I want more of it. Have no plans tonight except family and a certain date with any icy local beer. I appreciate all the kind wishes. Thank you.

Three years

Monday, Nov. 1 marked three years since I moved to Mexico City. (I've been stuffing the face with so much pan de muerto, chocolate calaveras, and whole candied pumpkin since this weekend, I almost forgot.) Here's my post describing that day's events. This Thursday, I turn 30. The above track is a birthday wish from a friend. Here's another, and I love it. Thank you.

Casual smooches with a piñata

Here's a Golden Era starlet in an intimate moment with Tin Tan, the one and only -- if only in piñata form. It's last week. We're on a race up to the moutains on the western flanks of the Distrito Federal, headed to a costume party at a friend's house in tiny San Lorenzo Acopilco, a pueblito in the Cuajimalpa borough just before the border with the Edomex.

Yes, it's very, very cold up there. I was unprepared, in shock for a bit; spent about two hours snuggling with myself on a couch, shivering and cursing my freezing toes, before I could get up a convivir. "You should come in February, it snows up here."

We went down the lane to check out the church, where they were having their big fiesta for San Juditas. Gifts of atole and sweet bread. It felt like a special night, on the cusp of Muertos and Halloween. The orange Harvest full moon.

Above Morelia *

This is the view above Morelia, spreading out there in the distance, from the off-the-charts Hotel Villa Montaña, in the leafy mountains to the south of the city. I'm not staying here, no way. I merely went up this morning to conduct interviews with some of the filmmakers behind "Revolucion."

I'm in Morelia for the film festival. My first time, my first time in Michoacan, too, and per my practice I am soaking up as much as possible. (I repeat.)

You can read my coverage this week at La Plaza. Always blogging, always grinding. * More later.

Saturday ...

... is already feeling a lot like Friday.

Sunlight, streets, snacks. Los fierros viejos de la Portales, el mercado de la Portales, metro Pino Suarez, and its pyramid to the wind god. Salto del Agua. Bueno, no. Isabel la Católica.

Correo Mayor, fake jewelry galore, as far as the eye can see. The old postal palace, trámites que se tratan del color de la piel. "Blanco." "No, moreno." Un esquimo de fresa, por favor. Una quesadilla de queso y pollo. Un heladito de chamoy y chile. Bueno, me lo chingo.

Y no hay de faltar un litro de piñón (para llevar, plis) y un cóctel de fruta, sin crema. Para acompañar el café vietnamita que me traje desde Los Angeles. Todo esto hasta en el día que no se olvida. "La gran ciudad." La urbe como máximo paraíso y útlima perdición.

The Indian church at Tonantzintla

This is the church of Santa María Tonantzintla, Puebla, a supreme example of barroco novohispano, or what they also call indigenous baroque. The style is basically a fusion of colonial architecture with pre-Hispanic design principles, and the site most often associated with indigenous baroque is Santo Domingo, in Oaxaca.

I'd argue Santa María Tonantzintla is on another level.

Friends had described it beforehand as the "Indian church" or the "church built by Indians," and indeed, on first sight, it feels indigenous, uniquely not a totem to Catholic power. The facade of the Tonantzintla church -- Nahautl for "the place of our little mother" or "lugar de nuestra madrecita" -- looks like how we imagine the exteriors of pyramids looked, not just ruins of stone but brightly colored and textured with dense ornamentation.

The saints and angels that adorn the exterior and interior niches are formed, vaguely, in the manner of the old Aztec sculptures.

 

Here's a closer view of the facade, and here's about as close a shot I was able to get inside the nave, as the church was packed with parishioners for a special Mass of some sort on the Sunday we visited. Photos are not allowed inside Santa María Tonantzintla, a rule I suppose is meant to preserve the maximal barroco novohispano decorative work that covers just about every inch of wall-space in the interior. But here's the Google Images scan, and here's an amateur video. Don't the walls look alive, unreal?

The Puebla state government says construction began on Santa María Tonantzintla in the 16th Century, by indigenous artisans. I was able to find very little information on the church's history otherwise. Apparently the local community is fiercely protective of the site, declaring that it is autonomous from the diocese of Puebla.

We happened to visit during the festival de queso in the pueblo. Mmmmm. Every outdoor space, packed with food and smells and vendors. We picked up some nopal and cheese ice cream, and then headed over to Chipilo.

Bicentennial love *

The bicentennial of Mexico's independence passed without major incidents on Wednesday and Thursday in Mexico City.

That is, if you discount the massive and bizarre Olympic-style parade, the 7-ton anonymous colossus statue erected live on the Zocalo, the over-the-top fireworks and fire show, the "grito" led by President Felipe Calderon as thousands on the plaza shouted "culero" in reply, the military parade the following morning with units marching from 17 "amigo" countries to Mexico (including China and the United States) and fleets of Air Force planes swooping down overhead.

A piece of cake, right?

There was less reflection than I thought there would be, less remorse or regret for some of the steps Mexico has taken in recent years, and a lot less fear that I might have imagined, too. Everyone came out, partied, and armed themselves for the inevitable cruda.

A fun night, but there's still a drug war going on, a hurricane on the way, and lots of anxiety to process for the mornings after.

The above photo of bicentennial love is by photographer Trevor Snapp, who produces work from Latin America and Africa. Here are more by Snapp. The Boston Globe's "Big Picture" feature does the bicentennial here. Great images.

* Thank you, Trevor! * Updated.

Cruising in Chipilo, an Italian village in Mexico

* Our best shot of the Sunday cruising ritual in Chipilo, Puebla.

I knew something was strange in this town, something different was up, when we descended from a memorial hill behind the main church on a visit last Sunday and came upon two light-skinned guys in tight T-shirts, sparkly jewelry, and studded sunglasses. They were arguing intensely besides a parked car. Spit was flying, arms were shooting.

The guys were debating something in what sounded like Italian, and from what I gleaned just passing by discreetly, the topic was either deception over a shared sexual partner or a complaint over a borrowed piece of clothing. Perhaps a belt or pair of sunglasses?

This is Chipilo, a small town just outside the city of Puebla, right in the middle of Mexico. Chipilo, founded in 1882 by Venetian immigrants, has maintained an Italian profile in Mexico for generations, much like the Mennonite communities in Mexico's north. (See the documentary work on Mexican Mennonite women by photographer Eunice Adorno.)

Just about everyone who lives in Chipilo is still ethnically Italian and still speaks the dialect of Venetian. Spanish is only heard among visitors. In Chipilo they produce cheese, keep mostly to themselves, and ... go cruising.

The cruising culture here had me tripping out. We sat at a outdoor table at a small restaurant for pasta, and watched. Chipilo teens on Sundays pile into cars or trucks or bikes, some drinking from open containers, many blasting heavy house music, and drive up and down the one and only main drag in town. Over and over.

I don't think I was mentally prepared to absorb such sights in Mexico, where a vast majority of people don't happen to look 100-percent Italian, or speak Italian or any of its dialects. Before long the Chipilo kids -- aware of strangers in town, staring sexily at us new-comers -- started nodding and waving in our direction. The older folks sat at the few sidewalk cafes across from the church and watched listelessly, sipping their Chipilo coffee.

An online search indicates there's been some ethnographic and linguistic work done on Chipilo out of universities in the Puebla area. Good to know, but I'll leave it at that. On our one day in Chipilo, we didn't pry for images or for connections with potential subjects. We just sat back, had some good Italian food, and got cruised.

* Photo above by Raphael B. Thank you, Cynthia G!

Eating San Diego, Part 1

The Vietnamese community in San Diego, where I spent the last week, is firmly established in City Heights, on the city's east side. Some folks might be wary of the S.D. neighborhoods east of the 805 freeway, but for those us who grew up or still live in the area, the dividends of this immigrant community's presence are clear: Lots of great Vietnamese food.

Above, a beef sandwich from Saigon Sandwiches & Deli, a small shop next to a laundromat (which I remember well from childhood) at a run-down strip mall on University and Malborough avenues. It's basically a roll, fresh cooked strips of beef, spicy pepper, cilantro, and carrot and jicama, I believe. If I remember right, it costs about $3. The Vietnamese coconut soft drink that accompanies it is about a buck.

It's a delicious and fast lunch under $5. But if the mood calls for a bit more of immersion in Vietnamese cuisine, I head up a few blocks to Saigon Restaurant, across from Hoover High School. The place consists of a single dining room with a high, airy ceiling and cool mural paintings of the Vietnamese countryside. Great ambience, and great pho, noodle dishes, spring rolls, and Vietnamese coffee and lemon ice drink.

* More soon.

In Oaxaca, tejate and tensions with the state *

Above, a bowl of fresh tejate outside the door of the Santo Tomas Xochimilco church in Oaxaca, where an old woman was handing out glasses of the maize-cacao drink for free for parishioners as we left a wedding ceremony inside. A drink for "Zapotec kings," according to MEXonline, tejate is "made of precisely toasted corn, cacao, cinnamon, and the seeds and flowers of a fruit called mamey." The flor de cacao becomes a foam and rises to the top as the ingredients are mixed together by hand, adding a wonderful texture to tejate as it travels down the throat.

It is served cold, sometimes with ice and sweetened with sugar-water. And it is delicious. Over the three days I spent in Oaxaca last weekend for this wedding of friends of friends, and for the Guelaguetza festival, I had a glass of tejate nearly every time I saw it being sold on the street.

Referring to Oaxaca as a nation unto itself is as accurate as you can get in describing the southern Mexican state. Much like Mexico City functions in relation to the Valley of Mexico and the surrounding central highlands, Oaxaca City (now Oaxaca de Juarez) feels sharply cosmopolitan for its region. All of Oaxaca's distinct regions and ethnic groups converge there, an ethnic, linguistic, and gastronomic diversity that is palpable and evident on every corner. In its food, in its civil and civic customs, in its sense of self and its relationship to the rest of Mexico and the rest of the world, Oaxaca is a fully realized society.

And all societies, of course, have their share of problems.